


Stay, Stupid

by tb_ll57



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Lemon, Lime, M/M, Past Trowa Barton/Chang Wufei, Post-Eve Wars (Gundam Wing), Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2020-04-07 06:50:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19079734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: By TB and Marsh--there's a very fine line between 'hero' and 'criminal'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Authors: TB and Marsh  
> Fandom: Gundam Wing  
> Pairing: 5x2  
> Rating: M15  
> Notes: EW is canon excepting some significant details about the aftermath.

He was still recognisably Duo, after all the time since their last meeting. He was still very obviously Duo Maxwell, and that was why Wufei was embarrassed that it took Duo finally addressing him to look him in the eye.  
  
"Do I smell or something?" Duo demanded.  
  
Swanston Street was busy this time of night, swarming with night-life and tourists, local business groups out for dinner. It _was_ Duo. No taller than ever, but shorter, now, than Wufei was. His clothes were tattered, the ragged cuff of one pant leg trailing dirty strings to his muddy thong sandals. He was the same dark tan from head to toe, even the strip of bare chest beneath his open shirt.  
  
"Hey," Duo said. "Do you remember me?"  
  
Wufei found his voice. He stepped wide of Maxwell, risking the kerb. "I remember you," he said curtly. "It's--" Pleasant was not the word. "To see you," he said, leaving it blank.  
  
Duo followed him. "You too," he said, and it sounded like a grin, from what Wufei recalled of such things. "How you going?"  
  
Australians said that. It might mean Duo had taken to living here, and by sheer accident of fate they'd simply met this night and not any other. Melbourne was a huge city, twice the size of any colonial metropolis. He looked like anyone else coming out of Flinders Street Station, round-faced, pleasant, yes, if you didn't know who he was, if you had been expecting him to be there--  
  
"Wufei."  
  
"Where did you come from?" he said. A crowd of giggling girls, barely legal, stumbled down the pavement. Wufei ducked to the shelter of a lamp pole, and Duo was there immediately, refusing to honour a decent amount of space between them. Their arms brushed before Wufei could cross his over his chest.  
  
Duo frowned, but his voice stayed cheerful. "Relax," he answered. "I've only been following you for the last three days, not the last three years."  
  
"What?" He was shocked. "Why?"  
  
The girls were past. Duo's head turned to watch them cross the street at the light. "Saw you a few nights back. Haven't seen anyone I know in a while."  
  
Had he ever imagined what had become of the other Gundam pilots, he would not have imagined Duo Maxwell living at a remove from the others. Despite his reluctance to encourage this unwanted conversation, he found himself asking, "Have you been hiding?"  
  
"You're not the only one who likes to wander around in the dark."  
  
Duo had winked as he said that. Wufei clutched his arms close. "Why do you?"  
  
"Why do _you?_ " Duo returned. "The burns aren't that bad."  
  
He was shocked, vividly, shocked that Duo would be so crass to draw attention to his scars. He'd grown used to the way eyes turned blank when they noticed, the way strangers preferred to act as though his entire body were invisible, rather than look directly at his disfigurement. They had to look away--the burns covered him from cheek to thigh on the right. His hand was nearly useless, his arm permanently curled inward. It was his face that people couldn't stand to see, though, and his face that Duo now stared at with offencive boldness.  
  
"You're mad," Wufei said flatly. "Or you're a liar."  
  
Duo laughed.  
  
"Enough." He was shaken. It was too abrupt, too surreal. "I was walking," he said. "I intend to continue."  
  
"That's cool." Duo didn't move from the lamp. Wufei bowed from the spine, more respectful than he wanted to be, with the sting of Duo's blatant falsehood lingering between them. Duo belatedly returned it, awkward with the weight of the over-stuffed duffle slung over his shoulder. Wufei turned his back, and headed at an angle for the crosswalk.  
  
Suddenly Duo was at his side again. "So," he said, ignoring Wufei's startled flinch. "How long you been in Oz?"  
  
For a minute, all Wufei heard was the accusation. Yes, he'd joined the Barton Rebellion, but it was cruelty for Duo to turn up out of no-where and demand Wufei account for his loyalties. He'd spent fifteen years in prison for his betrayal--  
  
Duo blinked, and relinquished Wufei's gaze. "Australia," he clarified gently. They reached the opposite kerb just as the light changed, and Duo slipped a hand under his elbow to help him up the step. Wufei snatched his arm away.  
  
"I can walk," he insisted coldly. "About five weeks."  
  
"It's hot here," Duo said.  
  
He whirled on Duo. "I won't stay long."  
  
Duo's eyebrows climbed in his golden face. "Why not?" Now it was he who seemed startled.  
  
Because Duo had despoiled his hiding place, and came bumbling through the remains with no idea what he was doing, what delicate balance he had already destroyed. He felt--his balance was torn away, even the ground was unsteady. A woman in a business suit hit him from behind, and only Duo's quick reflex saved him from stumbling. "It's not my place now," he said.  
  
Duo let go on his own this time, as soon as Wufei had his feet under him again. "Why can't it be?"  
  
"Because I don't want it." He was aware of the crowds now as he hadn't been since stepping off the plane. There were people crammed in everywhere, and they all seemed to be watching them argue on the street. " _You_ d stay here. I'll leave tonight."  
  
And it was not then just Duo standing there facing him, but a stranger, wild-haired and middle-aged and acting utterly indifferent to Wufei's attempt to yield the field. "We can't be in the same city without having a turf war?" he asked. He had the nerve to sound amused.  
  
"Apparently we were for three days." His nerves were settling slowly. Duo hadn't reacted; maybe he'd only imagined that confrontation, painted what he expected out of a man he hadn't seen in--what, twenty years? Two decades. He'd gone to jail; him and Trowa Barton. Collusion, conspiracy. It hadn't mattered Trowa had been an undercover infiltrator, not without definitive proof of his good intent. Wufei had been unable to offer even that, and had taken no excuse for himself. He'd waked in prison, and stayed there until his sentence was fulfilled.  
  
Emerged into a world not radically different for what he'd tried to do to it. The peace was solid, even old, by then. Quatre had made him offers, but Wufei had chosen--no, had had to choose--his own way. He'd disgraced the memory of his clan a thousand times over. The years of near-solitary confinement had made him unfit company for anyone, even well-meaning men like Winner who only wanted his friendship. He'd had nothing to say to anyone. He had not imagined there was anyone who had anything to say to him, not now.  
  
"Why did you follow me?" he asked slowly.  
  
But Duo only shrugged. He set out walking again, long-legged ambling strides. He knocked a post box with a loose fist, and then he shrugged again, as if no ready response had come to him. "No reason not to," he said.  
  
He was the one who followed, this time, too stiff to quite catch up. "What's that mean?" he called. "Maxwell!"  
  
"Christ, Wufei, I followed you because I know you, and it was nice to see a familiar face."  
  
Another lie. "Not so familiar any more," he muttered.  
  
Duo turned. He gave Wufei plenty of time to catch up, and plenty of time to see when he rolled his eyes.  
  
They were stopped again, at the edge of Federation Square. The fantastic pastel spotlights turned the sky above their heads pink and green, splashed Duo's face with fairy-lights. "What do you want from me?" Wufei asked him.  
  
They stared at each other. "Want to get a coffee?" Duo said.  
  
Wufei swallowed down his roiling emotions. They did him no good. They never had. "I prefer tea," he said, as civilly as he knew how.  
  
+  
  
"Hang a left here." Duo pointed. "My treat, yeah."  
  
They had left the Square behind for the quieter side streets. Lagged together, that was; both wanted the back position, wanted to be able to watch, have time to react. It was an old soldier's trick. It had been a long time since Wufei had seen it in anyone but himself.  
  
"I'm not poor," Wufei said.  
  
"For fuck's sake, I'm offering hospitality, not charity. You wanna pay me back the dollar ninety?" Duo sighed, then. He reached ahead and seized Wufei's hand.  
  
Wufei was appalled. He yanked, outright disregarding his dignity, but Duo only caught him again. "What's _wrong_ with you?"  
  
"You're going to be my friend, even if it only lasts ‘til midnight," Duo said. "So suck it up."  
  
He felt sweat start on his forehead. "Can we be friends without the touching?"  
  
"I'm not like you. I want to know people are real." Duo turned right to a through alley only fifteen feet long; they emerged on a small street lined with lower-end businesses. The noise vanished as if it had never been, an ocean-like roar at their backs. Passerby were fewer here. "I promise to respect the rest of your boundaries," he added.  
  
He wasn't used to being touched. Not any more. When he'd suffered the burns, he'd been a captive of them, of them and the clinicians treating him. They'd touched him, all day, all night, scrubbing the dead flesh from his limbs, changing his dressings over and over. It had been an invasion, a constant nightmare of pain and humiliation. He'd never wanted to be touched again. For a shameful second, when Duo grabbed him, it was that kind of touch. Unwanted. Forced. It brought him to the edge of panic, and he teetered, struggling for balance.  
  
He relented only because he knew Duo could not imagine the imposition he was inflicting. "Please, not my right hand. If you must touch."  
  
Immediately Duo switched sides and snatched his left hand tightly. Inescapably. "Does it hurt?" he asked.  
  
"Usually not," Wufei admitted stiffly. "The hot sun makes it ache."  
  
"I'm sorry." Again, that awful direct gaze. Wufei looked anywhere but at Duo.  
  
"It's justice." His fingers felt numb. He was sure he was imagining it. It was just that Duo was the first person he had touched in--  
  
He did feel numb, then. He hadn't realised how much time had passed, since he'd--touched--even unwillingly--another human being.  
  
He swallowed to ease the dryness of his throat. "Where is your home?"  
  
Duo shrugged. His sandals slapped the pavement with every step, a purposeful noise at odds with his rangy gait and round-shouldered slouch. His hand was somewhat damp in the humidity. It was not comfortable. "Don't have one," he answered.  
  
How long had he said he'd lived in Australia? Had he said? "Why don't you?"  
  
"Why would I?"  
  
"Everyone wants a home."  
  
"Not everyone." Duo pointed. "We're here. Come on."  
  
A sign in neon said it was The Globe. A homeless man and a shaggy, panting dog slumped in its doorway. Even across the street from the café, Wufei could smell the marijuana. Two disaffected teenagers sat at the window table, large ceramic mugs between their black painted fingernails. Bass-heavy music at curiously low volume thudded sluggishly out of the building.  
  
"Harmless goth kids," Duo said. Wufei had come to an instinctual halt, and Duo allowed it, watching him. "They'll make an art out of ignoring us. When you get our age, we're invisible."  
  
He'd spent most of his life trying to be invisible, for one reason or another.  
  
"Two hours left ‘til midnight," Duo said. "Buck up. You'll make it." He tugged at Wufei's hand, and led him across the street.  
  
Duo had been right. No heads turned to follow their entrance, even the barista's. The tables were scattered and disorderly, fronting battered bookshelves full of sloppy magazine piles. Fliers for music and political rallies littered the available wall space. The dozen patrons were all teenaged, stringy and moody, half their age, all painfully young to look so cynical and used. Privileged, Wufei thought, the way young people were today, born without ever knowing about things like war and threat and hunger, but angry all the same.  
  
"There," Duo said, raising his voice over the blare of the music. He sounded too cheerful for this place. He chose the table furthest from the door, secluded in a corner near the dim bathroom hall and the placement of the bar. Whether it was Duo's usual table or whether he'd chosen it with a mind toward Wufei's comfort, Wufei appreciated it. Duo even left him the seat facing the rest of the shop and put his own back to the door; that, Wufei was sure, was a true gesture, and he mumbled a thanks as he took his rickety chair.  
  
Duo dropped his duffle carelessly to the floor. Something in it definitely clanked, and Wufei wondered--guns, weapons, a strong possibility; or perhaps, realistically, something utterly innocuous. Wufei may have spent fifteen years a prisoner for war crimes, but Duo had had all that time to grow used to the peace.  
  
"Black or green tea?"  
  
"Green, please." Wufei folded his hands on the tabletop, then moved them to his lap when he noticed the fluorescent light reflecting on the shiny skin of his burned fingers. "Where have you been staying?"  
  
"Wherever I feel like." Duo made a thorough excavation of the pockets of his trousers. Coins clattered to the floor before he removed a wad of crumpled cash bills. "Right back with that."  
  
It grew more mysterious. Wufei was reluctantly engaged by the puzzle. Duo obviously lived like a--a vagabond. Had he done something? Had he simply been unable to settle after the war? Wufei remembered him very little, in truth, and doubted that what he did recall could be accurate after so much time. And though Duo answered his questions, Wufei had the strong impression that he did not enjoy doing it.  
  
Duo returned from the bar with a mismatched pair of mugs each large enough to be soup bowls. He set the brown glaze before Wufei--tea, still steeping, in a bag bearing a common, low-brand tag. He stole a sugar canister from another table and flopped into his chair so hard it creaked in protest. "While it's hot," he said.  
  
"Thank you." He sipped it out of courtesy. And decided, enjoyment aside, to ask his questions anyway. "That's not what I meant," he began.  
  
"What'd you mean, then?"  
  
"Here. In Melbourne. Where have you been staying." He touched the duffle with the toe of his shoe.  
  
"There's a coupla parks," Duo said carelessly. "I like to sleep out in the open."  
  
"You're mad." The shock was getting dimmer each time, rolled into the same jumbled mess of feelings. "The flies and mosquitoes will carry you off. Or the spiders. This is not a hospitable place."  
  
Duo chuckled. He added at least a tablespoon of sugar substitute to his coffee and attacked it with a wooden stirrer.  
  
"I'm serious, Maxwell."  
  
"I know. You're always serious." He licked the foam from his stirrer. "How'd you get the burns?"  
  
Wufei stiffened. That was no innocent enquiry. Duo knew his game and didn't shy from letting him know; he met Wufei's eyes almost rudely.  
  
He released his breath slowly through his nose. "Heero Yuy," he said.  
  
He'd shocked Duo, for once.  
  
"You knew we fought that night." He couldn't speak of it, not so bluntly, but Duo was quick to nod his understanding. "I was-- defeated."  
  
Duo sipped his coffee. "Did he know what he did to you?"  
  
"I have no idea. We haven't spoken since."  
  
Duo sipped again, and set his mug aside. "Yeah. Heero can be a bitch."  
  
The curse surprised him. The sentiment more so. "Is he still alive?"  
  
"I don't know. I haven't spoken to him either."  
  
"Why not?  
  
"Why would I?"  
  
"I thought you were friends," Wufei said frankly, frustrated with the verbal parley.  
  
Duo's smile was odd. It was not the same as any of the smiles Duo had been so free with in his youth; it was not the same smile as an hour earlier, that Wufei began to think was muted already, a muscle memory, not an outward expression of inward joy and laughter, as a smile ought to have been.  
  
"Friends," Duo said, "are a luxury, and Heero doesn't allow himself any of those."  
  
He could not break the silence, not after that. He longed for Duo to make the next move, but Duo refused, busying himself with his coffee as if it took immense concentration to sip and swallow. The music was head-ache inducing, some kind of just sub-audio whine causing a tightening in his temples. And he was tired, strain creeping on his awareness from his legs, his shoulders, his neck. He'd been walking all day, pushing himself, driving himself. He needed to rest. He needed not to look weak in front of this man who demanded his friendship and did not act like a friend.  
  
He found compromise in a side-step from the unwelcome subject of Heero Yuy. He asked, "Do you talk to the others?" deliberately leaving it open to include the three Gundam pilots whose names had not yet been spoken.  
  
Duo answered agreeably. "No," he said. "I don't run into any of them."  
  
"I see Quatre," he offered. "Saw. Once in a while."  
  
Duo nodded. "How was he?"  
  
"Well." But Duo was not interested in that, and neither was Wufei. "Pitying," he added abruptly. "It made me--" Nauseous. "Uneasy."  
  
"He means well. The eyes are just too big and dewy for anything else."  
  
"I didn't blame him." He sipped the tea. It was really too hot in summer for tea, and steeping had not improved the flavour, but Duo was watching. Watching everything. He didn't know many Anglos who did that, that blatant disregard for privacy of person, not in countries where people rode the subway with their eyes on the floor and protected their space in a crowd. He said, "I just don't want to deal with it again."  
  
"Fair enough," Duo said. "I never saw a law that said you had to hang with anyone who pissed you off."  
  
That, Wufei thought, was an out. Duo was staring at him, and that was an out.  
  
He didn't take it. He said, "You're different."  
  
Duo blinked. He looked away--not to hide. His expression was one of utter disinterest. Wufei flushed.  
  
After a minute, Duo said, "Are you going to disappear tomorrow, or do you wanna go somewhere with me?"  
  
He clutched the tea in both hands. "Where are you going?"  
  
"I don't know yet. I was thinking I'd like to see the water."  
  
"Why invite me?"  
  
Duo's face became a web of golden wrinkles as that unusual smile broke over his mouth. "Why not?"  
  
"I think," he said slowly, "the answer to that is… pretty well apparent."  
  
Duo finished his coffee in a final large smile, his cheeks bulging, and then white teeth flashing in a grimace. "I'll walk home with you then."  
  
"If I go, you'll end up hating me. I'm-- rude, self-pitying, impatient--"  
  
"I have a thick skin," Duo interrupted. "I'll survive a day in your company."  
  
"A day." It wasn't, somehow, what he'd expected. "I see." The tea was cold. "All right."  
  
Duo's eyes returned to him. "Is that a 'yes, Duo, I'd love to join you on a jaunt out of town?'"  
  
"Yes." He did not smile. Duo might have been charming, he supposed, but he wasn't funny, not now. "I'll go. But I warned you."  
  
"I'll remember that, if I need to."  
  
"I have a room," he said. Charity for charity. "You're welcome tonight. Unless you prefer the spiders."  
  
Maybe Duo didn't have his pride. He accepted at once. "I'll crash with you," he decided. "Payback for the tea." He winked, again.  
  
Artificial, Wufei thought. Not genuine. Yet, it was, and he couldn't question it; there was nothing of artifice in the way Duo acted with him, except that everything he did overturned Wufei's--very reasonable--expectations.  
  
"Come on then," he said.  
  
+  
  
His flat was immaculate. His building was not. It was a poor area of town, ethnically Chinese and all but a ghetto because of it, far from the city centre. They walked. It was very late when they arrived. Duo trudged silently, by then, his energy clearly flagging; Wufei forced himself along step by step in a grim determination not to show his weariness first.  
  
Duo was quiet as Wufei unlocked the three padlocks on his apartment. It was spartan, at best, scrubbed clean by his own excruciating effort. His futon, opposite the window, the sheet tucked under and smooth as if it had been ironed. The table, the lime green paint halfway stripped, two chairs with seat cushions in faded grey. There was a battered bureau; it was empty. Wufei, too, knew how it was to live out of a backpack.  
  
Duo looked about with curiosity for precisely four seconds. He dropped his duffle into the nearest corner, and said, "Cool."  
  
"The bed's small," he apologised unwillingly, embarrassed suddenly. "But you're thin."  
  
"I can take the floor if you'll be uncomfortable." He meant the burns, and Wufei took it as a serious offer, not just some pointlessly polite gesture. Certainly Duo had not bothered himself with formula courtesies yet, at least.  
  
He denied it with a shake of his head. "I don't have pain." He hesitated. "Something to drink…"  
  
"No," Duo said. "I'm tired."  
  
There was one lamp. He lighted it as he closed the door on the bright hallway. Duo had shucked his sandals and crossed to the window to stare at the view--not much of a view, an alley below, and a neighbour building across it. He undressed quickly. He removed his shirt first. His shoes, his trousers. He folded them and laid them on the bureau. Naked except for his undershorts, he waited for Duo to turn, dreading it, defying it. Inviting Duo to comment, to joke, to be as repulsed as any other man would be.  
  
Duo turned. He cocked his head. His face was impossible to read, half of it cast in shadow, the rest gilded in golden lamplight.  
  
"I had a foster guardian who put out cigarettes on my back," he said finally. He blinked once. "Can we go to bed now?"  
  
That was brutal. He couldn't breathe. Duo was the best liar he'd ever known.  
  
"Yes," he managed, voiceless. He folded back the sheet, then abandoned it to douse the lamp. He plunged them into darkness, with only the street light from below the window casting a ghostly glow. He lay down quickly, facing the wall. He did not allow himself to curl into the protective ball he yearned, shamefully, to make of himself. He lay rigid and stiff, unbearably aware that Duo had not moved while he did all of that.  
  
Then suddenly Duo did move. He lay on the futon at Wufei's back, a warm presence absent of threat, and terribly, horrifyingly destructive.  
  
A hand crept out of the dark and wrapped about Wufei's.  
  
"It's midnight," Duo whispered.  
  
The tightness in his chest constricted painfully. He squeezed, once, Duo's fingers. Duo's forehead came to rest between his shoulder blades.


	2. Chapter 2

He timed the coffee well with Duo's waking. He set the best of his two cups on the wooden arm of the futon behind Duo's head, and sat at his table to wait.  
  
Duo sat up slowly. Daylight was not kind to him. They were the same age, but Duo looked older than thirty-seven, his face lined, grey threads in his wild hair.  
  
He had not shared a bed since his wife's death, so long ago he could barely remember now. Even then they had not been expected to sleep together. Their marriage had been a confirmation of the bond between two clans, but they had been children. All his memory of it was the echo of his anxiety, the lingering awareness of her deep bitterness, his inability to alleviate her unhappiness.  
  
When his eyes had opened with the dawn, Duo lay facing away.  
  
"It's nearly noon," he said now.  
  
Duo made a clumsy grab for the coffee. He sipped silently, and rubbed his eyes. "Thanks," he said, finally.  
  
"You're welcome." He'd had to leave to buy it at the market. "There's a toilet at the end of the hall," he suggested delicately. "Try not to touch anything."  
  
"Yeah." Duo sat up slowly. Wufei offered him his shirt, cleaned as much as he could manage. Duo buttoned it with stumbling fingers and shuffled off, barefoot.  
  
Wufei let out a exhale that shook.  
  
When he returned, Duo seemed marginally more awake. He joined Wufei at the little table with the coffee, his face damp and gleaming. His feet, Wufei noticed, were clean also, but for dirt engrained on the undersides.  
  
"You never were a morning person," Wufei observed.  
  
"Light sleeper." He looked almost hung over, the circles deep under his eyes. But he smiled, at last, and asked, "You still coming with me?"  
  
Wufei inclined his head. "I said I would. Unless you think better of it, in the clear light of day."  
  
"We'll take the bus," was Duo's answer. "I don't want to walk that far."  
  
"Bus to where? We could walk to the water from here."  
  
"I want to see Bridgewater Bay." Duo dug in the knee-high pocket of his trousers and came back with a much-folded and battered map. "There's trails and things there, if you really have to get the walking out of your system."  
  
"If this is what you want." He had resolved not to argue. He restrained himself with an effort. "I'll buy my own ticket."  
  
Duo yawned behind his hand. "Damn right you will."  
  
Wufei flushed. "The bus, then." He rose from the table. "Do you have protective clothing?"  
  
"Somewhere." Duo slipped his feet into his sandals and stood, finishing the coffee with a final swallow. He tightened the knots securing his duffle and swung it over his shoulder.  
  
Wufei was surprised. Did Duo mean for them to part ways after this impulsive trip to the water? He hesitated, with Duo staring sleepy-eyed at him. It took only moments to unearth the backpack he used for travel and to fill it with everything of importance that he owned--two small tea cannisters, his pair of cups, wrapped hastily in a spare shirt, his bamboo steamer and ivory chopsticks. If he didn't come back, he would miss nothing else, need nothing else. He met Duo's gaze defiantly as he shouldered the pack.  
  
"I'm ready," he said.  
  
"Onya," Duo said. He grinned. He let Wufei go before him to lock the apartment shut. "Hey," Duo added then, and made Wufei hold his hand again.  
  
"Why do you keep doing that?" Wufei demanded.  
  
"Do you want me to stop?"  
  
"I want to know why." One of his neighbours, a bow-backed old woman who lived with two grandchildren, stared at them from the kitchen as they passed it. Wufei was glad for the shelter of the stairwell. Duo seemed unaware of his embarrassment. He even cheerfully swung their hands, when they clattered to the bottom.  
  
"Like it," he said. He yawned again. "Where's the nearest stop?"  
  
"Two blocks up." There were plenty more to watch them pass by like lovers in handclasp. Wufei had made no effort to know anyone in his building or in the community around him, but he felt their silent censure nonetheless, the old men frowning at him, the young children who stopped their games to watch this unusual pair walking brazenly down the street.  
  
"Holding hands doesn't make you gay," Duo said suddenly. "Kissing would, but then you'd never be able to come home."  
  
"It isn't a home." He turned his face forward deliberately. "Are you homosexual?"  
  
"Would it bother you if I was?" The next yawn audibly cracked his jaw.  
  
Wufei did not, did not know how to, answer. Instead, he pointed out the bus top across the street and they crossed to it. Duo sprawled on the bench and threw his duffle to his feet. He attempted to wrangle his tangled hair with his fingers while Wufei studied the schedule. By sheer luck, they would wait less than ten minutes for the bus. He sat carefully on the bench, leaving as much space between them as possible without being obvious about it.  
  
"You don't braid it any more?" he asked at length.  
  
"When I remember," Duo said.  
  
Wufei scowled. "How can you forget? It's basic grooming." Duo only shrugged and slipped a thick lock, mostly straightened, between his teeth. There was a sizeable snarl at the back of his skull, Wufei could see it even from the side, and one significantly worse halfway down. He did remember, he was sure he remembered, that Duo's hair had once been cleanly and neat, obsessively neat even in times of severe urgency.  
  
"It's been cut," he remarked. He braved the distance and brushed his fingers over the ragged ends hanging mid-way down Duo's back. The hairs were coarse and split.  
  
"I had to get rid of it once." Duo explained nothing further. Wufei did not press it, though he immediately conjured a dozen new questions. Duo did not know it yet, perhaps, but Wufei intended to spring the trap he'd fallen into. Duo was not the only one who could seize on an unwilling companion. There would--Wufei was sure of it--be time, time and the proper place for all the questions he had.  
  
"Come here," he said, suddenly inclined to be gentle. Duo's expressive face could hide none of his surprise, or his wariness. Wufei gestured. "Please," he added.  
  
Duo slid closer. Wufei turned him by the shoulders to face away, carefully dragging his fingers as far as he could through Duo's hair. It would have been easier if it were wet. Perhaps at the beach. "Do you have a comb?"  
  
"Not that I know of," Duo said.  
  
He did. He'd left it at the apartment, too rushed, too focussed on what had been a hurried transformation to the grand symbolic gesture. He did what he could bare-handed, managed to confine the worst of the tangles together, slowly clawed three large strands out of the mess. His only experience in braiding was of leather for the handle of the sword he had surrendered twenty years ago when he accepted his prison sentence, but he was catapulted back to that memory. The plait he created was imperfect, but he satisfied himself that he could do nothing more in this situation. He secured it with one of his own hairbands, spares he kept in his pocket. It was an odd thing to generate a sense of accomplishment; but it did.  
  
Duo swiveled to look at him. Hadn't he just thought that Duo was an open book to him, every thought apparent in his eyes? He was impossible to read now.  
  
"Pretty sure that made you gay," Duo said. "A little bit at least."  
  
He was spared a reply when the bus turned the corner and steamed to a stop for them.  
  
+  
  
He was getting used to having his hand held. It still felt--weird. But he was getting used to it.  
  
By the time they reached the beach, Duo was fully awake. He stared actively out the windows at the scenery as they drove zooming past it, checking his crumpled map frequently against their route. When they neared their turn-off, Duo pulled him to the front of the bus and forced him to stand in the aisle while he struck up a dialogue with the driver.  
  
He started rubbing his thumb over Wufei's, right before their stop. If he was conscious he was doing it, Wufei couldn't tell it. Duo's face stayed turned away from him.  
  
The driver let them out at an empty lot. "I'm back this way at half six," he called after them. "Keep out of the sun, you lot."  
  
"He makes a good point," Wufei said, when the bus had gone and they stood alone on the crumbling concrete. He turned in as full a circle as Duo's leash on his arm allowed. There were protective shelters at the edge and leading down the cliff to the surf, but they would be exposed at the beach, and he rather expected Duo meant them to stay out all day, putting them both at risk from the intensive UVR. "I don't have any sun block."  
  
"Hats," Duo answered. He produced a straw Akubra hat from his duffle, plopping it on Wufei's head without waiting for permission. "And long sleeves. Here. It's even clean." He pressed a shirt on Wufei as well, a dark cotton.  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"Already done." Duo grinned at him from the cover of a leather cap with a wide, salt-stained brim. "Good look on you. Peasanty. Weren't you supposed to be a prince or something?"  
  
"Or something," Wufei said.  
  
It was a place of striking beauty. Wufei admitted that readily. There was a stiff breeze off the ocean, carrying a hint of coolness despite the mid-day heat. The water was painfully blue, that peculiar bright teal that didn't match the clear sky above it. The waves had white caps but the surf was gentle, and it stretched forever with only the summer-blasted brown line of the coast cupping it in. Far along the way, Wufei thought he spied another pair braving the sun, but most people would be wise enough to obey the Health Advisory.  
  
Most colonists would be. Wufei had been raised with a terror of sun exposure. His first week on Earth he had obsessively marvelled at the rapid darkening in his skin tone. His ancestors might have been horrified by his Terran tan, warnings about greenhouse effect dinned into them as they were every colonist, from birth. But there he was, walking the beach in full sunlight, and Duo next to him, brown as a walnut, brown as the braid swinging pendulum-like beneath the hat. He thought of his fingers in all that hair, and transferred his eyes to the sand, to the tips of his shoes disappearing into the grains.  
  
"Have you been here before?" he asked, breaking the silence.  
  
"No," Duo said.  
  
"Neither has anyone else." It was a poor joke, but Duo grinned at him, teeth flashing in his face.  
  
"I get tired of too many people anyway," he answered.  
  
"Why here?" They met what must have been the edge of the full tide, where the sand was littered with broken shells and dried, shrivelled seaweeds. Duo came to a stop. He had hold of Wufei's hand again, but he was looking out at the ocean. "What do you see out there?"  
  
Duo drew a deep breath. "It's like space, isn't it?" he said.  
  
"Space?" At first he was only surprised that their thoughts seemed to have been on similar tracks, home in the skies with the colonies. But that didn't seem right. "I don't understand."  
  
"Full of things you never see, and going on forever," Duo explained. He gestured with the hand that held Wufei's, drawing invisible pictures on the air between them. "And if you want to get deep about it... human life came out of the oceans. And the oceans came out of star matter. It just makes me feel... outside of myself."  
  
"Why would you wish to be?"  
  
"Everyone wants to be outside themselves sometime."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Duo glanced at him. Squinted against the sun, lines deep around his eyes, heavy around his mouth.  
  
Maybe he pushed too hard. Duo looked at him for a long time without answering. Wufei refused to be embarrassed this time, though; if he was rude in his questions, he was no less so than Duo, who had dragged him all across the countryside intent on philosophising and communing with the universe. Duo had said it, and Wufei wanted to know what it meant. And he'd chosen Wufei for his companion; and Wufei was many things, but passive was not one of them.  
  
"Why, Duo?" he said.  
  
The corner of Duo's mouth turned up. Approval, sly and small, but there for just an instant before his face turned back to the water.  
  
"Because we're too small," Duo replied. "I think that's why we invented gods."  
  
"You believe they're inventions?" He was surprised. And, perhaps, not so surprised. "Some would call that heresy."  
  
"People who haven't stepped outside themselves in a little too long. God is just a name we give to something so we'll recognise it when it happens."  
  
"I don't believe in gods," Wufei admitted.  
  
"You believe in something bigger than you are," Duo disagreed, and this time he was truly surprised. "That's close enough."  
  
"Semantics, is that it?"  
  
"I don't think the word matters."  
  
"Maybe." Duo sounded so sure. He exhaled. Duty had been his god, all his life. Duty to serve his family, his clan, the colonies. He'd gone to jail for duty, given fifteen years for duty, given his bodily freedom. He woke every day trapped in his outward disfigurement, his inward shame. If there were gods, Wufei did not imagine they could be any more powerful than that.  
  
They'd gone quiet. Duo stroked his hand again, and titled his head back for the sunlight.  
  
"From here the water looks so clean," Wufei offered at length.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"It's not, though, is it? Nothing is."  
  
"That doesn't make it hateful."  
  
A white bird came swooping down on a draft from behind them. It dove for the water, silent and graceful. "I didn't say I hated it."  
  
"You just don't want to be in it?"  
  
"The ocean? No."  
  
"That's okay. Me neither."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Too much water makes me nervous. Knee-jerk, you know?" Duo smiled at him.  
  
He didn't know. And he would not have guessed that about Duo. "Are you afraid?"  
  
"Not at a healthy distance," Duo said, with a gesture toward the stretch of sand between them and the lip of the water.  
  
"Is there a reason for that?"  
  
"I don't know what it was like on L5, but the most water I ever saw in my life on L2 filled a cup."  
  
"Much the same. I'm not afraid of it, though." It did not occur to him--much--to tease, but he did wonder if Duo was teasing him. There was no sign of anything but sincerity in all of Duo's words to him, however, and he felt there was no other option but to accept Duo's unwavering honesty.  
  
"Why?" Duo did tease, then. He mimicked Wufei's intonation perfectly.  
  
"The water can't take anything from me I'm afraid to lose," Wufei said, and matched him flippant for flippant.  
  
Duo's smile faded away. He tugged the brim of his Akubra low over his eyes. "Getting hot now," he observed.  
  
"I said something wrong."  
  
"It's all right."  
  
"Tell me what, so I don't repeat it."  
  
"It's all right, Wufei."  
  
He had only just been moved by Duo's willingness to share with him. Snatched away, now, so easily, Wufei felt the sting of it like a rash on his skin. He freed his hand with a flick of his wrist and plunged recklessly, deliberately, down to where the sand was wet and water swirled in puddles. He went far enough for the dregs of a wave to wash over his toes, and then one step further, soaking the hems of his trouser legs.  
  
"Wufei!" Duo called, a note of real anxiety in his voice.  
  
Wufei faced him. He spread his hands at his sides. "Why is it only I have to lay my heart bare?" he retorted. Spray hit him from behind at knee-height. "You have no more right to hide than I do."  
  
Duo shuffled at the berm, expression lost in the shadow of his hat, fists clenched on the strap of his duffle. "I don't-- I don't know what that means."  
  
"Don't you?" He took another step back without looking at his path, and Duo rocked toward him as if to grab him back from yards away. It was an insane game to be playing, suddenly, emotional blackmail on a man who was obviously struggling, and guilt swept him with the next wave. The sand under his feet was shifting and uncertain, angling down a sharp incline. If he stepped back again, he wasn't sure how deep he might be. He said, "You close up so tightly some times. You brought me here. I want it to mean something. I want you to give equal to what you demand out of me."  
  
"Maybe what I'm not saying isn't important."  
  
"Or you don't trust anyone enough."  
  
"And I should trust you?" He saw the effort it took. Duo gathered himself and came forward. Wufei held his hand out, both hands as Duo swayed reluctantly back from the foaming edge of the water. For a strange, wild moment, Wufei thought Duo would make it out to him, and his heart pounded in anticipation.  
  
But then he saw the heave of Duo's chest, the strain in the white knuckles on the duffle strap. His stomach sank, and the reality of their surroundings returned. He felt foolish, and cruel.  
  
He waded up out of the water, and took Duo by the elbow. "Come away," he said gently, and guided him back up the beach.  
  
+  
  
He liked to walk. He could do it for hours, until his muscles were screaming in protest, pushing himself along past all point of pride or sense. He had trained all through childhood to conquer his physical shell, but he took grim pleasure in the daily battle to prove that he, and not his wreck of a body, was in charge.  
  
But with Duo trudging alongside him down the sandy beach, it was a much different thing than in the city. He was forced to go slower than his usual wont. And he could not clear his mind, not least because it would be impolite--not least because Duo had given him much to think about.  
  
"Did you get treatment?"  
  
Duo's voice startled him. They'd been quiet for so long, unsure of each other after Wufei's stunt in the water. And Duo had a canny ability to know exactly what Wufei was thinking.  
  
He cleared his throat. "For the burns? Yes. I'd have died otherwise."  
  
"They couldn't make them look better?"  
  
"I don't know. I never asked."  
  
Duo laughed. "You wouldn't," he said, when Wufei looked him askance. He bent to the sand and carefully pried a large tawny shell from beneath a clump of sea refuse. It had a ragged, sharp edge. Duo cut his finger testing it, and laughed again. He showed the thin line of blood to Wufei, then passed him the shell. "Something used to live in that."  
  
"It was a good home," Wufei surmised. The pearly inside of the shell was smooth to the touch; the coloured outside was ridged and pockmarked, but still very pretty, swirled in distinct if abstract patterns.  
  
"Empty and broken."  
  
He glanced sideways. "You're not like the shell."   
  
"I'm not much for metaphors anyway."  
  
He said it _meta-fers._ It took Wufei a moment to understand. When he did, he discovered he could laugh, too. "Liar."  
  
"What?" Duo said, but smiling.  
  
"You do it constantly." It was his turn to find a treasure. He chose a piece of driftwood, no larger than his palm, bleached grey as bone. He thought it might be coral, worn smooth. He held it up between them in the attitude of a teacher. "You're probably dying to say something about this just to test me.'  
  
Duo's teeth were in evidence, bared in a grin. He took the driftwood and studied it. "Holy and twisted," he declared.  
  
There was a stone, long and smooth, finger-shaped. Wufei palmed it. "Unyielding and indestructible."  
  
"I like twisty better."  
  
"You would."  
  
Duo took his hand again.  
  
Wufei swallowed. "You don't want it?" he asked, noting when Duo dropped the driftwood back to the sand.  
  
"Not really," Duo said. "It belongs here."  
  
"I don't think the ocean will miss it."  
  
He went back for it, though he wasn't sure if he ought to let Duo go first. He grabbed it with his scarred hand, in the end, struggling to close his fingers around it. "Souvenir," he said. "You always did like to keep souvenirs." He held it out until Duo took it, and then quickly put his hand in his trouser pocket.  
  
Duo turned the little piece of wood between the large knuckles of his fingers.  
  
"The scars really aren't that bad," he said.  
  
That was twice Duo had said that. Wufei believed it as little as he had the first time. "There are uglier things about me," he answered, though, suddenly nervous, suddenly overwhelmed, wishing Duo would let him go, wishing Duo had never come at all.  
  
"So, what?" The driftwood turned in Duo's fingers, end over end. "The scars are just a decoy?"  
  
"No. They're nothing." There was sweat on his upper lip. He longed to wipe it away, but refused to bring out his hand again, not with Duo watching hawk-eyed and entirely too interested. "A wall," he confessed, and the humiliation was last, all offered up for Duo's sharp stare. "A shield."  
  
"Do you need them so much?"  
  
"I didn't think I did until they were part of me."  
  
Duo released him--his eyes, at least. The driftwood went into a pocket, and he started walking, pulling Wufei with him. "And since you'll never be rid of them, you never have to know how else to be."  
  
"It's easy to think too much about it," he said.  
  
"That's suspiciously meaningless."  
  
"Suspiciously?"  
  
"Maybe it's too easy, but I'd bet all you do is think about it."  
  
With Duo looking away, he wiped his face quickly on his sleeve. Sweat stung on his cheek even now, and he was hot. They'd been outside for hours when all sane people stayed indoors. "Duo, where are we going? What are we doing?"  
  
Sitting, abruptly, dropping into the sand as if he'd meant to all along right between steps. Wufei tumbled off balance and only caught himself when he had one knee in the sand. The duffle fell from Duo's back with a thump. Wufei eased onto his flanks and shed his own pack.  
  
"Can't reach you all the way over there," Duo said.  
  
"Then come closer."  
  
Duo did. He sat very close, his arm, quite warm from the heat, brushing Wufei's, their knees touching.  
  
"Do you think I'm going to run?" Wufei asked him.  
  
"I'm pretty sure I'm faster."  
  
"That's not an answer."  
  
"It was if you were listening."  
  
"I'm not going to."  
  
"There'd be no hard feelings."  
  
"Yes there would." Duo took his hand, so casually, so determinedly. "Feelings are always hard."  
  
Duo inhaled deeply. Then he seemed to decide that was funny. He laughed on the exhale.  
  
The sun was definitely in the west, but it was no later than mid-afternoon, perhaps four. "How long will you stay?" Wufei asked him seriously.  
  
"You know, I spent all night once trying to work up the nerve to kiss you. Except then Tsuberov tried to murder us, so that didn't work out."  
  
"Kiss me?" He was terribly embarrassed, not least because he suspected his own reaction to that. Duo had been very free in touching him, and Wufei did not live celibately entirely by choice. "When--the Lunar Base? Why?"  
  
"Yes; and you were ignoring me."  
  
"You wanted to kiss me because I was ignoring you?"  
  
"Yeah." Duo laughed at him, and fell backward to the sand, propping his head on his duffle. "Pretty much."  
  
"You were an odd boy." He was blushing, and hoped the hat hid it. "Did you outgrow it?" he added gruffly.  
  
"Meaning do I still want to kiss you?"  
  
"Duo, damn it--"  
  
Duo laughed again. "I wouldn't say I spent a lot of time thinking about it while we lived on opposite sides of the Sphere. I might acknowledge that it crossed my mind since I saw you again."  
  
If there was a time for compassionate gods, it would have been that moment. But there was no lightning rescue, no saviour arriving by magic. Just Duo, his thigh pressed to Wufei's, and a very great deal of subtext Wufei hadn't the faintest idea how to interpret.  
  
It took a long time to bring himself to ask. "Are you going to?"  
  
"Do you want me to?" Duo had hairy legs, perhaps not so bad for a white man, but more so than Wufei. His voice, cheerful, round in accent, and calmer than anything Wufei could pretend to, floated from behind Wufei's head, making him edgier even. "I'm not sixteen anymore. I don't imagine kissing people who might punch me afterward."  
  
"I wouldn't hit you."  
  
"Metaphorically."  
  
"I won't hit you."  
  
Silence told him Duo appreciated the difference. He dared a glance back. Duo wore the little smile, the private smile. He didn't meet Wufei's eyes, but that, Wufei thought, did not mean what it might have meant before.  
  
"I'm not attractive," he said.  
  
"You're not unattractive."  
  
"You're not looking," Wufei said.  
  
Duo did. Full-on, and without blinking. "You're attractive to me."  
  
He turned his face so the scarred half was in Duo's eyeline, even lifted his loose hair to reveal the damage. "You're not _looking,_ " he repeated.  
  
Duo was not smiling now. He sat up, and said, "I don't know how many ways I can say that I don't care about the scars."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why should I?"  
  
"How can you ask that?" he demanded. "They're hideous."  
  
"Sure. That's the function of scars. They're ugly and they're visible. But they're something that happened to you, not something you are."  
  
"That makes no sense--"  
  
"What did you demand people see about you before you had scars?"  
  
"For once I'd like to hear, 'yes, they're ugly, and it's all right.'"  
  
"And that'll cure you?"  
  
"You're not seeing me. It's part of me." He swallowed dryly. "I need you to see me."  
  
Duo's hand twitched a bit, disappeared into his lap. "I don't want to kiss you anymore." 


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you vote?" Duo asked.  
  
"I didn't think I was allowed."  
  
"Yeah, they passed that bill back when Quatre was the Foreign Minister. It was his big thing, expanded franchise. The last expansion was convicted felons and illegal aliens who could prove residency for ten years."  
  
"I don't think it's my place," Wufei said shortly.  
  
"It's your government too. You've got more to say even than most people. Most people don't know what government-run maximum security prisons look like. Don't you want to vote for someone who'll improve the system?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Way to sell out your fellow prisoners."  
  
"I feel nothing for them."  
  
"You don't feel even a little obligation of citizenship?"  
  
"I was a citizen of L5."  
  
"Are."  
  
"Look," Wufei said, his patience at his end. "I don't feel connected enough to anywhere to make that claim or feel that obligation."  
  
"Well, that's an ignorant attitude," Duo retorted tartly.  
  
"I can live with that."  
  
"That's just selfish. You may think your life isn't worth much, but you owe what's left of it to certain people and ideas and suck it up, whiner."  
  
Duo had a way of saying things that made sense, if one could overlook the packaging. Wufei wasn't inclined to be that charitable, but he couldn't reasonably argue with that. Fifteen year old boys didn't agree to pilot Gundams if they didn't already believe they owed their lives to something bigger.  
  
In the end, all he could grumble was, "You need taking care of, stupid." Duo stuck out his tongue, and Wufei pointedly ignored him.  
  
+  
  
They walked the empty boardwalk for an hour before vendors arrived to open their booths and set up for the night crowd. The heat finally began to fade as evening descended, and a cool breeze off the water helped cool everything pleasantly. Duo had a habit of entering every store they passed, wanted to touch all the touristy knick-knacks on the shelves. Once he produced a handful of crumpled bills from his pants pocket to buy a bag of Australian humbug candies. Wufei had not yet thought to ask if Duo had-- what his money situation might be. Obviously he didn't work. But neither did Wufei have to. They had been granted pensions by the government, even Wufei and Trowa, and it was enough to live on, if one was frugal-- or didn't have a rent to pay. He couldn't quite imagine Duo collecting a cheque every month, though.  
  
By the time the sun was setting, they'd exhausted all the good stores and kiosks selling tee shirts and sunglasses. Duo had a tight hold on his hand again, but seemed content to be aimless. He was in a better mood than earlier, but his cheerfulness seemed forced, as if he were intent on ignoring their argument at the beach. For his part, Wufei was reluctant to remind him of it. They were nearing the end of their day. For all he knew, Duo might let go and be gone without even a good-bye, and there would be only twenty-four hours of memory left in his wake. He at least wanted it to be good memory. So he kept quiet, kept his thoughts to himself. Kept Duo happy. It wasn't hard, after all. It seemed to go much better when he kept his mouth shut.  
  
"Souvenir for anyone?" Duo asked idly. He led Wufei to a booth of pretty glass trinkets. The wrinkled old man who sat firing glass rods under a blowtorch spared them a glance, as if wary of stealing. Wufei supposed they were a ragged pair.  
  
"I don't have anyone to buy for," he answered. Duo's brown fingers slid light as air over blue-tipped wings of a glass bird, followed the swirl of a fragile flower stem. "Do you?"  
  
"I like this one." Duo plucked it carefully from the black foam pad. It was a rhombus, a swirl of topaz, purple, garnet. There was a little gold loop at the top for a chain. "Kinda girly, but it's neat, you know."  
  
"Yes." He took it from Duo and held it under the booth's magnifying glass. It was pretty. Competently made. It was only fifteen dollars. "Do you want it? Souvenir for you."  
  
"Nah. I got limited space." Duo pointed with the hand holding Wufei's. "Look at those beetle things. What are those?"  
  
"Weevils." He replaced the rhombus, and guided Duo's eyes to a shelf of bowls and vases. "I like this. ‘Ocean Currents Collection.'"  
  
The old artist pinched off a rod in the middle and set the halves aside. "Every piece hand-made," he said. "The glass colours change when you mix ‘em. Chemistry. That black there in the middle is white, until I mix it with teal."  
  
Duo seemed delighted by that. "How you get the white flecks then?"  
  
"While the glass is hot I dip it in a special solution." He rose to reach for a bucket behind him in the booth and showed them. "Then I blow it and shape it."  
  
"I like it," Wufei repeated. "Do you?"  
  
"You've got an unhealthy obsession with water." But Duo was smiling, and that made Wufei smile, too. "Look, there's fish the…"  
  
"Duo?" He turned to follow Duo's gaze. "What is it?"  
  
Duo's face was still and alert. Then, like a shot, he took off running.  
  
"Duo!" He lost precious seconds in his surprise. And he was not as quick as Duo, unable to run like that. Duo came back for him, second surprise, grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him along at a crazy clip. They rebounded off people in the crowd, wove and shoved through with Duo in the lead, catching him whenever he stumbled. They turned a sharp left into an alley strung with Japanese lanterns. Duo pressed him into an alcove created by the open back door of a restaurant kitchen, and held him there, trapped against the wall.  
  
He could barely breathe. His chest was on fire, his skin burned. His duffle dug into his back, and it hurt, but Duo held him up, pressed against him chest to chest. They were panting in sync, Duo's every exhale hot against his cheek.  
  
"Why," he managed finally.  
  
"They're following me." Duo's manic grip on Wufei's shirt released, then tightened anew.  
  
"Who?" The pain was easing. His sweat stung on his forehead and neck. "Who's following you."  
  
"I saw them. Two of them."  
  
"Two of _who._ "  
  
"They follow all of us. I warned the others but no-one listened, so fuck ‘em, time to get out of Dodge."  
  
"Which others? You mean us? The pilots?" He tried to look, but Duo prevented him, held him tight. "Who is it, Duo?"  
  
He felt Duo swallow, they were standing that close. "Preventers."  
  
He had half feared Duo was imagining, hallucinating. He was actually relieved. "They follow me also," he said. "I have my own pair."  
  
"They're all fuckers. Think they have the right."  
  
"They do." That was one law he did know about; they'd been at pains to inform him, when they'd let him out of prison. He'd signed form after form agreeing not to do this and not to do that, and chief amongst those agreements had been agreeing not to dodge his watchers. Sometimes the agents changed, but they were always there. He didn't even look for them anymore. "They must be very bored. There's nothing for them to see."  
  
Duo wasn't listening to him. He was locked on the head of the alley, taut and humming as he stared.  
  
"Ignore them," Wufei said.  
  
"They go through your trash. Your mail."  
  
"There's nothing for them to find. Relax."  
  
There was anger behind Duo's eyes, in the way his lips pressed flat. "Then when you really need help, need protection, they won't give it. They're not here for us, they're here for humanity, and humanity would rather us dead than thinking dangerous thoughts."  
  
Wufei studied him, intensely. He was more perceptive than Duo, he believed-- he had never had the ability not to think, to overthink. ‘Too many mind', one of his teachers had said. Too many mind, and he was absolutely sure there was something behind Duo's sudden attack of paranoia. Something that explained everything about Duo, starting with yesterday, starting, maybe, from years and years before Wufei had ever been out of prison. He asked softly, "What happened to you?"  
  
Duo didn't answer. Didn't hear him. He was staring at a man who had stopped across the street. His hand hovered at his hip, just reaching behind him a bit, where a holster might rest.  
  
"Be still." He laid his hand on Duo's arm. "Stop looking at him."  
  
Duo's eyes flicked to him.  
  
"He's nothing. He has no power over you unless you give it to him."  
  
Their eyes held. He tried to convey that he understood; he tried to convey that it was not a request, but a command. He squeezed Duo's arm.  
  
"You're wrong," Duo mumbled. "He has power of life or death."  
  
"You've done nothing wrong."  
  
Duo looked away. Wufei gave him a tiny shake.  
  
"I want to go. Let's go."  
  
"We'll go, then." This time, he took Duo's hand, sliding his palm down Duo's wrist until he could grip Duo's fingers. They were limp in his. Duo was quiet, now, gone internal, lost in his own head. But he walked when Wufei tugged him along. They exited the alley much more calmly than they'd gone in. Duo stared at the man across the street; there was a woman with him, who Wufei had overlooked, but neither particularly troubled to hide themselves. The woman even nodded to him.  
  
"Where should we go?" he asked Duo. There was a bus stop at the next corner. Maybe they ought to go back to his flat after all.  
  
"Not the bus," Duo said abruptly. "They can follow a bus."  
  
"We can't lose them, Duo."  
  
"I can make them work for it, and I can make them uncomfortable. It's worth my time."  
  
"Let's go home."  
  
"Home. Neither of us have a home, Wufei, it's the first thing the two of us agree on."  
  
"I have a place." Duo's palm was sweaty. He tried to ignore it. "We could share it."  
  
"A place under surveillance," Duo said harshly. "It's one thing to know they're watching and another to live under their eyes."  
  
"Why do they worry you so much?"  
  
"They're sub-human goons."  
  
"They're nothing. Soldiers without a war. They can't touch us."  
  
"No, they won't touch us! They won't touch us and they _watch_ and they watch while everything falls apart! It's their fault!" He went half crazy while he yelled that, fighting Wufei's restraint so he could shout it over his shoulder at the Preventers trailing them.  
  
If he hadn't already sensed Duo had problems, that would have confirmed it. He caught Duo by the waist as Duo tried to squirm past him, and physically dragged him into the restaurant on their right. A bell clanged as he shoved Duo through the door. There was no-one at the hostess stand, and he didn't slow to wait for someone to see to them. He aimed Duo at a booth along the far wall, away from the windows, and he pushed Duo onto the bench and trapped him there by sitting next to him on the aisle. Duo was agitated, shaking; Wufei could feel it when he held him by the shoulders to stop him twisting to look at the door. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded. "Look at me. Talk to me."  
  
They'd been noticed. A waitress in a white uniform came running to their booth. She complained, "You can't just sit anywhere you like, sirs. You're supposed to wait to be seated."  
  
That, for whatever reason, caught Duo's undistracted attention. He stilled, and let out a deep breath. "I'm sorry, miss."  
  
"May we sit here, please?" Wufei asked her. He gestured around the restaurant. "There are dozens of empty tables. There was no queue." She was unhappy, but Wufei did not back down, reflecting her rudeness by looking her unblinking in the eye. "We need a moment, please."  
  
"Sorry," Duo repeated. "Look, we'll order a meal. Big meal. Drinks, too."  
  
"Thank you," Wufei added pointedly. "We'll take menus." He held her eyes until she reluctantly turned away, and left them huffily. "Stupid woman. Duo, are you going to tell me what's wrong with you?"  
  
Duo rubbed his hand over his face. "Twenty years they've been following me." He chewed his thumbnail, then dropped his arms to the table and put his head down. "Enough to drive anyone a little nutty."  
  
"They follow us all. You've said so yourself." He put a tentative hand on Duo's back, between his shoulder blades.  
  
"It's more than that."  
  
They were interrupted again. Wufei barely concealed his irritation. It was a new girl, younger, and smiling. She had their menus, bright red cardboard emblazoned with gold letters spelling ‘Ginger' in a vaguely Asian print. Her round Australian face was cheerful. "Welcome to Ginger. How you going tonight?" she asked them brightly.  
  
Wufei smiled tightly, but kept the scarred half of his face to Duo. "Two specials. And a coffee. Thank you."  
  
If she was surprised he never touched the menu, she didn't say it. "Two specials," she repeated. "Coming up."  
  
"Now," he said to Duo.  
  
But the interruption had destroyed whatever momentum they'd gained. Duo was silent. He sat up, but only to overturn the bowl of sugar packets. He picked through for the blue substitutes, until Wufei covered his hands and held them down. "Now."  
  
Duo wouldn't look at him. "I can't."  
  
"Why can't you?"  
  
"You don't know what it was like." Duo wouldn't look at him, and he spoke as if he could barely chew the words. "They were always there. At first they claimed it was for our protection. It was after the war, after the Rebellion. But that wasn't the truth. They lied about everything."  
  
He'd had more than enough of Duo's punishing brand of honesty to comprehend at least some of the vast bitterness he heard; but not all of it. They were dangerous men. Or had been dangerous men, and who would ever believe they would never be again? Mad, dangerous men, who took lives, destroyed worlds. "They made the Preventers because of people like us," he said slowly. "Half of the world hated us. They..."  
  
"Don't say it."  
  
"How much can we really blame them?"  
  
"You don't--"  
  
The girl was back. She set two glasses of water in front of them, and a cup and saucer for Duo, a creamer and spoon. She didn't interrupt, but left with only a muted smile. Duo wasted no time ripping open two of the blue packets and emptying them into his cup. Wufei poured the cream for him, hoping the ritual would calm him. He didn't press any further. The spoon made tiny ceramic clinks as Duo stirred, and avoided Wufei's eyes.  
  
He said, "Do you remember Hilde Schbeiker."  
  
The name was familiar. He had met her and could recall a fuzzy sort of image of her, a slim girl with dark hair. "Your friend. The woman who defected from OZ."  
  
Duo rotated his cup a full turn, and set it carefully on its saucer. "I lived with her, after. We lived together."  
  
Wufei had already been in prison, if that meant the Barton Rebellion. "I hadn't been aware."  
  
"We lived on L2." Not acknowledging his comment. "We had a house there, a real house, nothing amazing, not big. We had a business in scrap together. We were even--" He scraped the edge of the cup with a torn nail. "We even talked about a family, one day, maybe, if neither of us met anyone else."  
  
"What happened?" His hand was back on Duo's again. He didn't think about it as he did it, but he realised, suddenly, that he had. His thumb stroked the back of Duo's hand, swept the bumps of his knuckles, stroked down the bone of his wrist. A cycle meant to soothe; soothe one of them, at least.  
  
"Living on L2, there was a lot of activity there, you know," Duo said. "Political activity. Rebels a lot, White Fang a lot too. Mostly people there, you live and let live. A woman." He sat back on the bench as if steeling himself. "A woman started following us. At first we thought she was one of the Preventers. They were always loitering. She broke into our cars, she left us messages at work, at home. Threw a brick in our window. Left a dead cat on our step. We knew the Preventers knew who she was. They had to, right? They knew. I begged them to do something about it, but they said no, they said they couldn't. The truth is they wouldn't."  
  
"You can't know that." He was trying to keep still, let Duo talk. It was the most Duo had said to him in one go, it was the only personal thing he thought Duo had said to him at all. He focussed himself on Duo's face, trying to read the little expression there, the tiny flex of muscle, flutter of thick eyelashes. There was a very pale, thin scar to the side of Duo's eye, new scar, not tan like the rest of him. Looking at it took him away from the words, though, and he lowered his gaze. "It doesn't make any sense."  
  
"She broke into the house when I wasn't there. Hilde wasn't feeling well. Went home early. She broke into the house while Hilde was there, and killed her. Stabbed her to death."  
  
That hit him like a punch to the gut; it forced the wind out of him. Oh, he knew that feeling. Hadn't he known that same shattering of the logical universe? Hadn't he held a dead girl in his arms and cursed the cowards who attacked those who were smaller and weaker? He had been prepared to share Duo's pain, but hadn't known they would share something so acutely tragic. He licked dry lips, and squeezed Duo's hand. "Why? Why would someone do such a thing? I-- I'm so sorry."  
  
"Revenge for us refusing to join White Fang." Duo freed his hand and hid both in his lap. "That's what she said. She was crazy. Someone who does that, they're just crazy. It was Hilde she was after, not me, really."  
  
"They put her away for a long time, I imagine."  
  
"No. I told them it was her. They said they hadn't seen anything. Bullshit." He laughed, a hard and bitter noise. "All they do is watch, and they don't see anything. I killed her. Wonder if they saw _that._ "  
  
"You what? That's-- you can't have."  
  
He lost the air on his protest even as he said it. Duo could have. He very probably had. He'd murdered a woman for vengeance.  
  
Duo met his eyes finally. "It was right."  
  
"Perhaps." He swallowed dryly. He made himself touch Duo again, an open palm on his shoulder. He squeezed. He believed that Duo believed that. Maybe it was even true. The Preventers watched, yes, annoyingly omnipresent, even arrogantly nosy. But he also knew that Duo's senses were-- overtuned. His perceptions were skewed. It would be hard to say it wasn't justified, if one were Duo.  
  
"That's why you've been running." Pieces began rapidly falling into place. "It's why you fear them so much. Isn't it? You think they know?"  
  
"Of course they know. Prove it is something else." Duo drank half his coffee in three large swallows. "It's been eight years. If they were going to take me in, they would. They wait. They watch. Maybe someday I'll let something slip."  
  
He was almost grateful for the waitress. She was sensitive to their tension, and didn't speak as she refilled Duo's cup with fresh coffee, and left a basket of bread on their table. Duo went through his ritual of preparation again.  
  
The restaurant was filling up. It was dark outside, now. If the Preventers were still out there, they wouldn't see much, not through the tinted windows.  
  
"If they knew, you'd already be serving a sentence." He tore a piece of the brown grain bread in half, scattering crumbs over the basket. "We both know they can find evidence if they want to. They follow you the way they follow all of us. Nothing more than that."  
  
"And haven't we earned real freedom? Haven't we paid whatever price we were supposed to?"  
  
He kept his eyes on his hands, his scarred hand, his fair hand, the fingers clenched on each other. "I'm not expecting anything."  
  
Duo shook his head. If it was a ‘no', though, he didn't voice it. He drank his coffee silently.  
  
"You can stop running now."  
  
"Wufei--"  
  
"Stay, stupid." Though it occurred to him, with a touch of Duo's paranoia, that it might make those Preventers out there nervous, if two Gundam Pilots started living and travelling together. He ignored the thought, and said, "I want you to."  
  
They looked at each other simultaneously. Duo's mouth quirked, and then he laughed. "I'm rude," he said. "And messy."  
  
It was a tease. Wufei had said the same to him, yesterday. Only yesterday.  
  
"I'm morose and impatient." He said it challengingly, daring Duo to top him.  
  
Duo had a faint smile now. "I'm gay."  
  
"So am I." It tore its way out of him. It was not an easy thing to confess.  
  
"You sure?" Duo asked gently.  
  
He felt a slight-- not so slight-- sensation of suffocation. "A man learns a lot of things about himself in prison." His mouth was dry. He sipped his water, rubbed his palms nervously on his trousers. "There were men. Trowa at first. I was sure at the time he… staked a claim to protect me. When he was gone, there was another. It was the done thing. I didn't fight it." It was like tearing off an itchy scab. It hurt, and it bled a bit, but there was relief in it, too. "It was sex. I didn't hate it. But I hated them."  
  
Duo said, "You were raped."  
  
"That's a very strong word."  
  
"Words are words."  
  
"Words have power."  
  
"Have you had sex since you left?"  
  
He'd met no-one and didn't intend to. He would die of shame before he hired a prostitute. He was too ugly for pickups in tea houses and bars, and too fastidious, anyway. "No," he said.  
  
"Maybe you don't want to." Duo propped his chin on his hand. "You're not gay if you're not doing anything."  
  
"They're not beating a path to my door, Duo."  
  
Yet another interruption, timely at least. The waitress arrived with their food stacked on a tray. "All right, two broiled rockfish with brown rice and wilted spinach." She hesitated with a large plate in hand. "You two going to stay with those seats?"  
  
"Yes," Wufei said. "Thank you."  
  
"Sure." She set the plate in front of Duo, and then the second before Wufei. "Anything else?"  
  
He shook his head. "It's fine. Thank you." She tossed them a smile, and left them alone. Watching her retreating back, he asked Duo, "Do you need more room? I can move to the other side."  
  
"It's all right." Duo poked the rockfish fillet with a finger.  
  
"Fork," Wufei said, and demonstrated with his own silverware. He sliced his fish and made a forkful of the flesh and rice. Duo mimicked him slowly, as if it were a foreign activity. Maybe it was. There'd been a time when he'd had a low opinion of Duo Maxwell's supposed civility. It would be ironic if his childish superciliousness had been correct after all.  
  
But then Duo said, "Swallow the bite."  
  
He obeyed, and wiped his mouth. "What?"  
  
Duo cupped his cheek, startling him. That was nothing, however, to having Duo kiss him. It wasn't a long kiss, it wasn't intense-- it was-- tender. He had never-- he had never had a kiss like that.  
  
And then it was over. Duo stroked Wufei's cheek, and then he let go.  
  
"Why--" He cleared his throat. "Why'd you do that?"  
  
"Now you're actively gay." It was a weak joke.  
  
His hand shot out as if it had a mind of its own, catching Duo by the back of the neck. He pressed his lips to Duo's, hard, roughly, more pressure than-- than cling, like Duo's kiss had been, the only way he knew how to do it. But Duo's mouth stayed soft under his, and he could taste Duo, breathe Duo, everything changed. He mimicked the way Duo's lips moved, shuddered when something warm and wet traced his teeth, touched his tongue. His hand slid from Duo's neck to the stubble on his jaw, rough against his palm, the flutter of Duo's pulse. It was racing.  
  
He wasn't sure which of them moved. But they were both sitting back, staring at each other.  
  
"No," he said, and cleared his throat. "Now I am."  
  
Duo laughed in surprise. "Yeah. I guess you are."  



	4. Chapter 4

In contrast to their walk through the city only the night before, their return to Wufei's flat was quiet as a shrine. The weekend nearly over, the crowds in the Square were sparse, and even fewer walked in the Chinese quarter, where the industrious slept early and the rest were closed up with their families. Wufei, who had none, had often used this time to walk, but he could not free his mind as he customarily did, with Duo walking beside him.  
  
He was plagued with the worry that Duo would disappear. It seemed impossible that Duo had only approached him twenty-four hours earlier. So much had changed. He had changed so much. Was not the purpose of life to live with calm, with passivity, _wu wei_ \-- humility before change? And what was Duo if not an agent of change? _Be bent,_ the Dao instructed, _and you will remain straight; be vacant, and you will remain full; be worn, and you will remain new._ He had sought isolation and been given a companion instead. He had tried to hide, and Duo had him admitting in hours what he had fought within himself all his life. And he had never wanted love, but when he looked at Duo's craggy profile walking next to him, he felt-- he felt suffused with such affection and warmth that he didn't mind at all the pressure of Duo's hand on his. Their steps were never quite in time, but Duo instinctively matched his slower pace.  
  
There was so much to think about. To act on? If it would keep Duo from running away, he would do it. Anything. Follow him, even. Wasn't he already packed? He'd made that decision that very morning and had no idea what it would mean, but he did now. Duo didn't wander so much as run, he thought. Could he keep up? Would Duo let him? Duo had initiated their kiss at the restaurant. Wufei did not take that lightly, nor did he think Duo did, but would it bind them the next time Duo was frightened by the Preventers? He'd been so furious to see them following. Wufei had known that kind of blind hatred. It was cancerous, and it did not die easily.  
  
He didn't blame Duo-- he couldn't. A clean kill in battle against an opponent who willingly supported a tyrannous power had honour in it, honour and the presumption of some equality of-- of equipment or training or-- not that any mobile suit or the averagely talented recruits of Alliance or OZ had stood a chance against a Gundam pilot. But murder? There were ethically grey areas even in wartime, and Wufei knew he had stood on the edge of that when he'd spent a long dark night crawling through ventilation shafts in an OZ cadet barracks to plant explosives. Yet they had been no younger than him, no younger than the wife Wufei had seen fly to her death against overwhelming numbers of the enemy. And they were not innocent civilians, they were soldiers in training, teenagers who knew the risks and yet looked joyfully at the opportunity to fight and kill. The woman Duo had killed--was it enough to say that someone who willingly murdered also willingly opened herself to fatal retaliation? Or did it weigh more that Duo had not been under strict orders, as Wufei had been, had conceived of murder alone and acted alone, intending revenge, not war? And what did it mean that Duo, who was so insightful in his way, had either not asked himself those things, or had not been troubled enough by the answers to stop himself? What had tipped the balance? Wufei had so many questions. He didn't think he could justifiably ask any of them. Duo had confided in him, friend to friend, but he hadn't invited any openness between them. They picked at each other, stabbed quickly when they saw an opening, but they didn't-- see each other. Not yet.  
  
I want you to see the scars, he remembered saying, remembered the dullness settling in his chest, the heaviness of realising Duo didn't, and did not want to.  
  
By the time they reached Wufei's flat, he had lost all of his elation. Duo sneaked him frequent glances full of uncertainty and an increasing wariness, but Wufei couldn't shake his mood. He was physically tired. He struggled to climb the three flights of stairs, even when Duo unobtrusively lent him the support of a hand under his elbow. He could not close his aching hand around his key, and Duo took it from him to open his door. Wufei went through gladly, until he realised Duo hadn't followed him across the jamb.  
  
"If you don't come in," Wufei said sharply, "I will never forgive you."  
  
Duo relaxed into a grin. He took an ostentatious step over the threshold. "Empty your bag," he answered. "I want to make tea."  
  
"You'll be up all night from caffeine." But he obeyed. He set his cups and the canister of leaves on his peeling tabletop.  
  
"I can sleep anywhere, anytime." Duo examined his hotplate, and flicked it on to warm. "I'm going to go fill up the pot. I'll be coming back. I say that so you know you don't go adding ‘runaway' to my list of sins."  
  
"I imagine your list of sins is quite long enough without my additions." He meant it to be flippant, but given his own train of thought he wished he hadn't spoken at all. But Duo laughed easily, and the trail of his footsteps up the corridor to the kitchen was easy, too.  
  
"We can take a pass," Duo said, when he returned.  
  
"Why do you do that?" He took the pot and set it over the hotplate. The wet underside hissed against the heat. He separated a spoonful of loose green shavings between the cups.  
  
"Why'd I do what?"  
  
"Make things so easy," Wufei said. "Make them my choice."  
  
"It is your choice," Duo answered. He inspected Wufei's window, and seemed fascinated by the view of the alley below, the lights strung between buildings, the bright yellow and red signs with the big painted characters advertising dumpling shops and fresh seafood. "It has to be your choice," he added absently.  
  
"Because you're so sure of what you want?" He capped the tea canister and caught himself on the verge of re-packing it in his bag. He didn't know what to do.  
  
"Because." Duo trailed a finger along one thin pane of glass, but all the dust was on the outside. "I'm not Trowa Barton, and this isn't prison."  
  
Wufei did not like that answer, but Duo's back was impervious to his glares. "How am I supposed to respond to that?"  
  
Duo shrugged, and turned finally. " _S'il vous plait._ "  
  
Unrepentant grin. And something about the eyes, too, that was different than that entirely, but Wufei did not know what it meant, or even how to find out.  
  
"You're not normal," he said finally. Duo laughed. So did Wufei, but he found himself mirthless. He eased into a chair at his crooked little table, rubbing at the stiffness in his burned hand. "This…" He couldn't quite open the fingers. It had been a long day. And he'd had too much sun--his hands were noticeably darker, and the skin on the back of his neck tingled and tightened with movement. When he raised his eyes, he noticed the red patch on Duo's nose, too.  
  
"This what?"  
  
"Isn't easy for me."  
  
Duo came a step closer. "I know."  
  
"I had plans," Wufei said. "You know? And an understanding of what was expected of me, and of what I could count on in return. You... you're a wildcard. A seductive--"  
  
"Seductive?" Duo repeated, with a hopeful tug of the lips.  
  
"--chaotic unknown." He stretched his fingers. "And for as long as I've known you it's been that way."  
  
He heard the shift of Duo's worn sandals on the floor. "I don't mean to be." He sounded subdued. Wufei concentrated on rubbing feeling back to his knuckles. "Honestly."  
  
"It's who you are. And it's why I... why I want you. No matter how much it terrifies me."  
  
Duo scuffed a foot along a poorly aligned floorboard. The mattress creaked. He was sitting on the bed when Wufei looked up, sitting on the bed where they'd slept together last night, only now, after their day together, Wufei wondered that it had, honestly, not occurred to him how sexual that might have been.  
  
"I don't mean to disrupt your world," Duo said. "I didn't think I would. You just-- you're in your own little space, no matter where you are. I was just lonely. I didn't mean to mess anything up."  
  
It was not a large apartment. It was even smaller with Duo there, too. There were just four steps between the chair where Wufei sat and his bed, four steps he had taken every night since he'd rented the place.  
  
"Is that what you think I think?"  
  
"I don't know what you think."  
  
"I think sometimes you're more stupid than I am." Four steps. He put his hand under Duo's chin and lifted it. For the second time, he kissed Duo.  
  
It was good. Better, this time, because he wasn't as nervous about it, because he had time to appreciate the feel of it, the consequences, and the urgency of his own fears only heightened his sense of it, rather than overwhelming him. Duo tilted his head back for it until Wufei pulled him to his feet. Hand around his wrist in a limp clasp that tightened slowly, and his head stayed tilted, his spine curved back--Wufei would never have expected such sweetness, such--submissiveness. It opened possibilities that he never would have imagined, like a tea blossom unfurling in boiling water.  
  
"You," he started to say, but without any idea of what should come next. He slipped his arm about Duo's waist, pulled them chest to chest. He kissed Duo again, harder. Harder when Duo bent back with him, crushing Duo's mouth under his as if he were angry. He was angry, a little, but he didn't know why. Duo's hand spasmed on his shoulder, gripped his shirt. Wufei sighed, and let go of all emotion but the positive. Duo was willing, and that was a gift. It was Wufei's responsibility to do it justice. As if he had followed Wufei's thoughts, Duo relaxed even more, supine against Wufei's body. Wufei cupped his cheek, rubbed his jaw with his thumb, and felt Duo's lips move in a smile.  
  
"If we do this," Wufei murmured, "will you ever be able to trust that it was you I wanted and not-- whatever comes next?"  
  
Duo fingered Wufei's hair away from his face. His expression was unusually serious. "I trust you."  
  
"You don't value yourself highly enough."  
  
"I know my worth." He circled Wufei's ear, mapped a trail down his neck.  
  
"I don't think you know what you're worth to me."  
  
"I don't know if you know either." He drew a deep breath through the nose. "If you were Heero I would know. I always knew. If you were Quat. If you were Trowa, we wouldn't be here, I think." He pursed his lips. "Did you love him? You didn't talk like you loved him."  
  
"Yes." His eyes closed in an involuntary blink. "Yes. But it wasn't... I loved him."  
  
Duo's hand stopped on his neck.  
  
"It wasn't hard," Wufei said at last. "I've always believed love should be, just a little. Look at me. You never loved before?"  
  
"Not love with sex."  
  
Wufei didn't know what to make of that. It was Duo, for once, who seemed to struggle with words. His lips flattened, and then he shook his head.  
  
Duo was not a virgin; he couldn't be, could he? But he was, self-confessed, a gay man, a gay man who'd lived with a woman since the war. Until her traumatic death. And he'd been lost and wandering since then. Alone. Lonely. Wufei traced the little scar next to his eye. He said, "Maybe this time we can both see what that feels like."  
  
Duo looked down with a swallow. It wasn't easy, they were standing that close, but it was uncertainty, it was even a healthy dose of fear. Possibility. Possibility meant change. There was reason to fear that.  
  
"I want to try."  
  
"Are you sure?" Duo almost tumbled onto his sentence. "I mean are you really sure? I show up out of the blue yonder and I know what I'm like, I know it's not fair, and I'm sorry, Wufei, it was selfish coming here, making you accept me here, it was selfish. I meant it to be selfish."  
  
"No, I'm not sure. I can't remember the last time I was confident about anything. If I fail, it impacts more than just me." He kissed Duo firmly. A string of saliva hung between them, thin as spiderweb, until Duo licked it away. "We're both selfish beings. It's human. Isn't it?"  
  
Duo's brow went smooth, and then, slowly, his teeth peeked between his lips as his smile grew. "I'm fairly sure it is."  
  
"Yes."  
  
This time, it felt entirely natural--effortless. Duo's lips moved against his. A day. He'd never once kissed Trowa, not in all the years of their agreement in their little cell of clear plastic walls and the viperish audience of their fellow convicts. There had been kisses afterward, involuntarily given, nothing more than sloppy gestures of mutual contempt. He'd never guessed that one day he'd welcome it, be hungry for it.  
  
"Don't run from me," he whispered, and pushed Duo against the wall, held him there with both hands on his jaw, their mouths smashed together. No, this he knew. This he remembered. Duo's legs opened for him when he nudged one foot with his shoe. His heart was pounding horrifically as he pressed to Duo, but so was Duo's, his pulse racing where Wufei sucked on it. Duo was as passionate as he was, though. Whenever there was a pause Duo was there, coming after him, demanding more in a silent shout. He was hard, unbelievably hard. Everything but the smell and the taste of Duo went black at the edge of his eyes. His pain and exhaustion were forgotten. He slid his hands beneath Duo's loose cotton shirt along hot skin. He could feel each of Duo's ribs, but that was nothing to the salt of his collar bones, the little nubs of his nipples, the slip of sweat starting between his pectorals. Duo breathed encouragement as Wufei pulled the buttons through the worn holes by wrenching each half of the shirt in opposite directions. It fluttered to the floor at their feet as Wufei curled his fingers to trail his nails over Duo's chest, leaving tiny raised scratches and a wave of gooseflesh. Duo's mouth hung open, his breath panting in Wufei's ear.  
  
They were on the bed without his being conscious of moving. Duo was all but naked, his trousers hanging open at the waist and slipping further as they frantically pushed them away. Wufei was still fully clothed, but Duo was trying, frantically trying, his hands roaming, never so much as slowing when they left his healthy skin and slid over the rough grafts and scars, but Wufei felt it; it shocked him. He caught Duo by the wrists, and they both froze.  
  
"Like this," Wufei whispered voicelessly. He held Duo's hands, then pressed them flat. Flat down on the biggest graft, the one on his side beneath his armpit down to the bottom edge of his ribcage. "You feel it?"  
  
"Don't do this, Wufei."  
  
"Please." He pushed Duo's unwilling hand down his side, shifted to drag his fingers over the crinkled hard burns over his stomach and down the jagged edge that interrupted the hair at his groin.  
  
Then Duo's fingers ventured further, without Wufei's to guide them. Wufei followed them, and curled them around his sex. For a moment, a moment, he was staring straight into Duo's eyes.  
  
"I don't have any condoms," he said.  
  
Duo's touch on his cock slowed. "I'm clean."  
  
Wufei shook his head. "I mean-- They test everyone, on release. I haven't been with anyone since."  
  
Duo's teeth made indents on his reddened lower lip. "I forgot."  
  
"If you don't want to risk it... I can go find some." His noisy upstairs neighbour had to have whole boxes, from the sounds that came out of there regularly.  
  
"I meant I forgot you were-- Have you ever had sex because you wanted to?"  
  
"I want to now." He let his weight fall between Duo's legs again. "I don't want to stop. Not yet."  
  
"You stop when you want, not when you think I want."  
  
"That's not how it works. This has to be honest. And mutual. Or it'll poison us both."  
  
Time skipped ahead crazily, and he would never have any solid memory of what surely had been pauses and awkward acrobatics and minor embarrassments of inelegant mistakes. What he did remember was Duo's sure grip, and the feel of Duo in his own hand, hot and solid and slippery. He remembered the scrape of hair on Duo's chest and navel and between his legs, the shaky exhale when he ventured a wet finger to mark his path. He remembered the feel of Duo's blunt knees when he hooked them under his elbows to raise Duo's legs, remembered how long Duo's neck looked, tendons straining in the shadows. He remembered Duo giving him consent, remembered the exact word-- _yes._  
  
It was like the waves of the ocean, the ocean he had lived barely an hour away from for years and never seen until Duo had brought him there. He rocked against Duo, wave after wave, and then he was drowning, and then he lay on shore again, with Duo breathing against his mouth, bodies locked tightly together.  
  
It was like nothing he'd ever felt before, and somewhere deep inside himself, he marvelled that he'd lived his entire life without knowing that feeling existed.  
  
It took an age for the little discomforts to register. Duo's hand was a fist in his hair, pulling too sharply. He became too aware of his nudity, and Duo's, spread out beneath him. And when awareness returned enough, he was horrified to realise he hadn't thought at all about Duo's comfort. He nearly tumbled them both from the mattress in his haste to pull from Duo's body. Duo's laughter shattered the silence. He locked his legs around Wufei's hips and refused to let him leave the bed.  
  
"What?" he said.  
  
"Making sure," Wufei answered, and rubbed at the heat in his face.  
  
"Making sure what?"  
  
"You don't hate me now."  
  
"Why would I hate you, you moron?"  
  
"I'm-- clumsy at it."  
  
"Shut the hell up."  
  
It sounded all right, then. Wufei allowed himself to relax, even to risk a smile. Duo stretched, joints popping loudly, dropped his head to the pillow, his eyes closed.  
  
"When you told me about Trowa... I kind of thought you were the one on the bottom," Duo murmured. "Sorry."  
  
"I was."  
  
"Oh." Duo blinked his eyes open.  
  
"I never did it like this." He touched Duo's thigh, thinking Duo might let him go now, but Duo barely moved.  
  
"Could have fooled me."  
  
"I have an imagination," he said defencively.  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"You're laughing at me."  
  
"I was thinking about it." Finally the legs around his waist released. "I gotta move."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"Who's sorry?" Duo pushed him onto his back and settled beside him, his cheek propped on his arm. "So was I better?"  
  
He didn't even have to ask. "Yes," he said. "Was I?"  
  
Duo touched his hair, carefully combed a lock into place behind Wufei's ear. "I wouldn't kick you out of bed for eating biscuits."  
  
"Then you'll have to stay."  
  
There was more than enough light to read the stillness in Duo's face. "I think it's actually getting cold in here," he replied, and bent to wrestle the sheet out from under them. He lay back against Wufei's chest and pulled it over their legs.  
  
Ah.  
  
He could be happy with this, he thought in the silence after that. He could be actually happy with this, if he let himself, if he could just adopt Duo's belief in that magical wishful mindset--want a friend, make a friend of what's available. Want a romance, make a partner of the man who'd already opened his bed. It was something. It was more than he'd had, anyway. If nothing else, Wufei had always known better than to wish for permanence--but he could make something out of this, for as long as it lasted.  
  
"Don't be mad at me," Duo said, a little while later.  
  
"Why would I be?"  
  
"I wish I could say it."  
  
He covered Duo's hand on his breast. "Don't make any promises."  
  
"I don't have any promises left."  
  
"Shh. I don't care." He should have turned off the light before they'd got into bed. He would wait until Duo was asleep, now. Or maybe just cover his eyes. It had to be past midnight now. Dawn would be coming soon.  
  
Duo might be gone by then.  
  
Would Duo even wake him? He could accept that without regret if it happened, knowing his path was already diverted, that he would still be changed even if he never saw Duo again now, but--  
  
But.  
  
"I want to go back to the beach tomorrow," he said. "Come with me. I'll teach you to swim."  
  
Duo was, for the first time, speechless. Wufei turned his head to look. Then Duo smacked him soundly on the chest.  
  
"I told you I'm scaredy."  
  
"You're stronger than that, Duo."  
  
"I'm strong enough to admit my fears," he said indignantly.  
  
"Do you trust me?"  
  
"You had to make it about that."  
  
"I know, it's dirty, but answer the question."  
  
"Arrr." Duo rolled onto his stomach, more than halfway onto Wufei's stomach, and pressed his ear Wufei's heartbeat. Wufei smoothed his wild hair. He would have to remember the comb in the morning, and make a proper job of the braid. He was fairly sure Duo would let him.  
  
"I trust you," Duo said. He muttered something more about the water, but Wufei didn't listen to it. He covered Duo's mouth with his hand, and said over him, "I'll take care of you."  
  
Duo laughed and moved Wufei's hand. "I'm thirty-seven. I'd say I do all right for myself."  
  
"You're care-worn." That silenced Duo again. "I'd like to help with that."  
  
The sharp bite to his nipple made him jump. "I'll drown," Duo said. "I'll drown both of us."  
  
"You're not going to drown."  
  
"You can drown in six inches of water. I read it somewhere."  
  
"Only if you're stupid. Are you stupid?"  
  
"How did you want me to answer that question?"  
  
"Honestly."  
  
"I'm not the brightest crayon in the box." Lips fastened over the nipple, the strangest and most erotic sensation, and warm wet swipes of a laving tongue. "If I do this, I want something from you."  
  
"I haven't denied you anything yet," Wufei said, unable to keep the wry reality from his voice.  
  
"Good." Duo sucked on his flesh, then let him go. "Then I'll do it. I'll let you know when I want it."  
  
"All right. So tomorrow we'll go swimming."  
  
"I'll have nightmares all night."  
  
"If you do, wake me," Wufei suggested daringly. "I'll make love to you until they stop."  
  
Duo laughed brightly against his chest. "Let's hurry up and go to sleep, is what I say."  
  
+  
  
They took the same bus to the beach. They even had the same driver.  
  
It had been hard to wake Duo in the morning. Wufei had expected otherwise, though why, he couldn't have said. There was plenty of time to buy coffee, even if he had to transfer it to his tea pot to keep it warm. Duo slept on, almost unresponsive to the sound of Wufei's voice, his touch. He held Duo's head on his lap for almost an hour, plying his long tangled hair with water and the comb, and to all appearances Duo actually slept through it.  
  
The bus ride was nervous, for one of them at least. Duo tapped his foot the whole way, until Wufei set his shoe over Duo's toes. They didn't go to the front to talk to the driver, this time. They didn't go to the front at all until they reached their stop, and then Wufei nearly had to pull Duo along. It was a bright day, a hot day. Wufei was sweating under his dark cotton, but he tied a kerchief about his neck anyway and made sure Duo did the same. Too much sun would be dangerous, and they'd have enough reflecting from the water.  
  
"Well," Duo said. "There it is. Lovely."  
  
"It is." Their feet had even found the exact spot where they'd stood before, on the empty parking lot overlooking the beach below. It was hard to believe the oceans had once been threatened. It seemed so vast, so shockingly blue. "It's beautiful."  
  
"Shame to spoil it with human intervention."  
  
Wufei found he could smile tolerantly. It wasn't often in life that he'd been able to play the teacher to another's pupil. And he knew Duo wasn't really objecting, just making noise. "We won't touch anything. Come on." He squeezed Duo's hand, and drew him toward the walkway.  
  
"So what do we do here?" Duo said, his leather sandals clattering on the weather-worn boards. A thin breeze waved the tall brown grasses on either side of them, blew salt-smell to their noses. "Is there a process or do we just kind of leap in?"  
  
The sand was burning even through his shoes. Wufei toed them off at the edge of the walkway, stripped his socks off beside them. "Yours, too," he said, and with a sigh Duo shed his sandals. "Come into the water with me."  
  
"So this is an object lesson." Duo's hand was damp, gripping too tightly. "Is there a moral?"  
  
"Take a few breaths. Relax," he advised. They made it to the line of dead sea weeds and broken shells from high tide when Duo began to resist his pull. He was breathing through his nose, hard breaths, uneven breaths. "There's nothing in that water to fear."  
  
"How deep is it?"  
  
"We won't go further than waist deep." He faced backward, faced Duo, to take both his hands. "The drop off is way far out. Much further than we're going. Trust me."  
  
Duo's look was sharp-eyed. "You get two more uses of that, tops."  
  
"I'll try to be conservative then." He tugged Duo back into motion. Finally they stepped on wet sand. The first frothy edge of a wave washed over their toes, and Duo rocked back. Wufei kept him there for three more waves, hoping the distant roar would register as soothing, that the cool water would feel good in the burning heat. There was sweat on Duo's face. His mouth was twisted tightly. When Wufei brushed a kiss to his temple, he whispered, "I don't want to do this."  
  
"Just to the knees then," Wufei agreed. "And we'll stop for the day." He squeezed Duo's fingers. The next step back was steep, just like the day before. A quick downward slope. It brought Wufei knee-deep, Duo up to his calves. One more step back, and Wufei could feel the current of the waves.  
  
"The water feels good," he said. "Cool. Clean."  
  
Duo shuffles from foot to foot. "The sand is moving."  
  
"The water drags it around a little. It won't disappear out from under you." He moved back toward Duo, wrapped his arms about him. He felt the splash of water against his back, the sun beating down on their hats, and dominating all of it, the threat, the promise, that they might float away, if they let go. "You feel it? It's more secure than Space ever was."  
  
"I never believed that." Duo began to shiver. A drip of perspiration fell down his cheek. Wufei thumbed it away.  
  
"We'll just stay like this a while." He made Duo kiss him, though Duo barely responded. He rubbed Duo's warm back and stroked his braid. Minutes passed like that, silent, with only a solitary bird call to break it.  
  
"I drowned her," Duo said suddenly.  
  
"Drowned who?" he asked carefully, quietly.  
  
"The girl. The one who killed Hilde."  
  
Had he really? He must have. There was nothing Wufei wanted to talk about less. "Where?"  
  
"Her bath." Duo's eyes were tightly shut, his eyelashes clumping with moisture. "I hid in her house for hours. She was bathing. I held her down."  
  
"This is nothing like that, Duo."  
  
Duo couldn't wipe his forehead without letting go. Wufei did it for him, and washed his face with the chilly seawater. "It's really not," he said. "It's nothing like that. She's not in the water. She's nowhere near us." He wet his hands again, had to pry them away from Duo's first, but then bathed Duo's fingers in the water. "See? The sea here knows nothing about that day."  
  
Duo swallowed. Wufei could feel it, his palm curved to Duo's neck as he did it. He tried to step further back, but Duo wouldn't be budged.  
  
"They baptise people like this."  
  
"I've seen it once, yes." He tried again to step back, and this time Duo nearly pulled him off balance.  
  
"Good thing God and me already have an understanding."  
  
He'd had a cousin who converted to Christianity, to marry a white woman. Mostly he'd been too young to understand all the disapproval of his elders. They'd worn white, too, though white in Buddhism was for mourning, and he hadn't understood that either. A priest from L3 had come. He'd brought his own holy water, when the elders refused to provide a pool. Buried in the likeness of His death, reborn into new life. He'd found it disturbing.  
  
"Your understanding," he said. "What is it?"  
  
Duo's hands shifted to his shirt. He held tight enough to pull the fabric across Wufei's back. "He leaves me alone and I take what's due when the time comes."  
  
"Interesting arrangement." Crushed so close Duo finally had to move with him. They were thigh-deep. "Are you good with it?"  
  
"It's just occurred to me that we didn't bring towels."  
  
"The sun will dry us."  
  
"Bodies float. I remember that."  
  
"There are scientific reasons for that." He wrapped his arm around Duo's neck and guided his head down to his shoulder. "I'm not going to let you drown," he murmured against Duo's ear. He thought, for a triumphant second, that he'd finally got through--  
  
Until a portentously large wave swamped them. Duo didn't panic, but it was a close thing, frantic panting against Wufei's chest.  
  
"We're soaked now," Wufei said uselessly.  
  
"Yeah." The sand was shifting under their bare feet, settling slowly. "Are we done now?"  
  
"We can be done, yes. If you're ready to go in."  
  
"Please." It was a plea. With a sigh, Wufei surrendered.  
  
"Let's go," he whispered.  
  
They sat on the high dry sand at the bottom of the hill for a long time. Duo wouldn't look at him, though he seemed better once he was out of the water. He wanted to hold Duo's hand, but Duo had his arms wrapped about his knees as he stared over the ocean.  
  
"Do you hate me for that?" he asked at last.  
  
"No. I get why you did it." He still trembled intermittently. "I'm just-- kind of not stable. Ish. You know?"  
  
He shifted close enough to Duo that their shoulders touched. "I think you're fine."  
  
"No. I know I'm not." It was softly spoken. Duo freed a hand and held it out. Wufei took it.  
  
"We can work on that," he offered.  
  
"I'm not entirely sure this is even real."  
  
He pressed Duo's hand, then decided it was not the time for the small, dignified gestures he would want in his own pain. Small and dignified weren't part of Duo's world. He wrapped his arm about Duo's shoulders and pulled him close. "You feel real," he said, "to me."


	5. Chapter 5

They had, in total, three happy days together.  
  
In the months to come, Wufei all but crystalised them in his mind, determined to remember every moment with the clarity of a film reel. They were a precious resource in a life without any other advantage against the overwhelming sameness.  
  
The first day they'd spent at their beach. They never went into the water again, but they climbed the cliffs over the sea, walking for so long they missed the six o'clock bus and had to call for a cab back to the city. They hadn't said more than five words after his mostly-failed idea of teaching Duo to swim, but by the time the sky was turning dark and the wind was cool on their sunburnt skin, it was as if they'd been talking all day, until he could know what Duo was thinking without even looking at him. They didn't have sex again, but he woke in the morning, naked to the air, and Duo's head rested on his bare stomach, cheek to skin.  
  
It almost felt like an altered state. He felt outside his own body. Duo trailed after him like a ghost--no. Like a companion. A friend. He might have recognised it sooner, but he'd never had one. Except Trowa. But he had been the one to trail in Trowa's footsteps, and it had been nothing this--nothing this perfect.  
  
They ate together, in the cramped communal kitchen where Wufei mixed eggs with rice and soy. They walked the neighbourhood together; Duo wanted to see it all. They drank tea at the Lotus Flower, sitting on mismatched chairs by crumbling plaster walls, avoiding the stares from the Chinese unused to a white man on their territory. If Duo noticed--he really might not have, for he seemed oblivious to it--it clearly did not bother him. They went to the grocery together, and Duo played at making Wufei pronounce the names of all the foods. He made Wufei laugh, trying to repeat the words. It had been forever since he'd laughed.  
  
That night, they definitely had sex. Duo, it turned out, knew quite a lot of things that were new to Wufei.  
  
The third day, they slept for hours at a time. They flopped on each other like puppies, even though it was hot enough to keep them languid and drowsy for most of the day. When they did finally stir, the sun was long down. They sat in the kitchen together, wrapped in Wufei's bedsheets and stifling their laughter at old Mrs Chu, who kept shuffling in to sneaky nosy looks at them.  
  
He had never been so content. He was afraid to call it happiness--part of him knew it would be a jinx. But contentment he allowed himself, content to take those days as a gift, to see his smile echoed in Duo's eyes, to know that, for once, time had brought improvement, not pain.  
  
The next morning, everything changed.  
  
"Thinking of moving on," Duo said casually. He sipped the last of Wufei's tea from his cup. He was standing by the window, naked from the waist up. His braid was loose, and the sunlight turned it a golden honey brown.  
  
He told himself he was not surprised. "I'd like you to stay," he said, proud his voice was even.  
  
"I know." Duo shrugged awkwardly. The muscles in his back jumped, and stayed bunched.  
  
"Doesn't matter what I'd like, then?"  
  
"It does." Duo turned. "Come with. Doesn't matter where we go."  
  
"What are we running from?" He sniffed the empty tea canister. The smell of the sencha green lingered. He capped it, and set it on the floor at his feet. The mattress creaked as he lay back.  
  
"The Preventers are still out there."  
  
"They always will be," he said.  
  
"I just--"  
  
He waited, but Duo never supplied a finish. He swallowed. "I'll come."  
  
"Yeah?" Duo's relief was palpable. He came to crouch at Wufei's feet by the bed, rubbing Wufei's knees. "We can stay out under the stars. We'll be like teenagers again."  
  
"We're not teenagers, Duo."  
  
Duo nudged his knees apart. "We've been acting like teenagers lately."  
  
Wufei was pliant to it. And being careful. Duo was mercurial even at his best, as volatile as dynamite. "In some respects," he agreed, "yes."  
  
"We could go out into the desert. Live with the aborigines. Until we get too dirty. Then we'll go find a hotel with a shower, and a big soft bed." His voice turned up suggestively.  
  
Wufei hated being dirty. He bathed daily, if not twice, given sufficient exertion. Duo's little dreamscape appealed to him about as much as ten more years in prison. But he gathered himself for sincerity of tone, and said, "Sure, Duo."  
  
His lack of enthusiasm had communicated itself, though. Duo's eyes dropped. "You don't like it."  
  
"I'm… not a vagabond."  
  
"Vagabond? The fuck?" He laughed. "It's camping."  
  
"No-one goes camping permanently. Besides vagabonds."  
  
Duo was struggling. He was trying to be light-hearted, but the unexpected disagreement was disappointing them both.  
  
He cupped Duo's face. "I'll go anywhere you want. I'd follow you anywhere."  
  
Duo overrode him. "You never said you had a job or anything. I didn't think you did. So what's it really matter where we are? What we do? There's a whole world out there. This little tiny corner of it is just-- it's just that, just a little tiny piece. There's so much else to see. Don't you like that? You like thinking deep thoughts about all of it."  
  
"We're not fifteen and fugitives any more, Duo." Duo stood with an angry little edge, hugging his arms to his chest. "We don't have to live on the run," Wufei tried again. "I don't want to live on the run. What's wrong with just being still for a while?"  
  
There was silence so loud it seemed to fill the room. The soft clink of the porcelain teacup on the table was like thunder. "Wow," Duo said. "How's this for a compatibility issue."  
  
"I said I'd come."  
  
Disappointment. That, at least, Wufei was quite familiar with.  
  
"Change is good." It might have been his nature to be a black spot on the sun, but he didn't have to give in to it. "I'll try not to be so--resistant."  
  
"No, it's okay. It's legit." Duo laughed. It sounded only a little forced. "This is still better than the scars conversation."  
  
Wufei smiled reluctantly at that. "I've been here long enough. Tell me where we're going next."  
  
Duo scratched the stubble on his chin. "I'll settle for a cinema. Once in a while I like to find out what everyone else is thinking about life."  
  
In the end, there was nothing to do but agree. When he nodded, Duo kissed him, and leaned on him, and Wufei did not listen to the voice inside that told him to enjoy it, because it wasn't going to last. He tried not to notice, too, when Duo picked up his duffle before they left. It was at least possible that it was only habit.  
  
They took the bus, but only after Duo complained that the soles were wearing out of his sandals from all Wufei's walking, and he would even buy Wufei a pass. He did, counting out the change from his pocket while Wufei tried not to look at the other passengers.   
  
"You want to go to the mall or find a little crappy cinema?" Duo asked. "Never mind. Little crappy place, I know. There's an art house south of Flinders. They're showing some French thing."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"I hope you speak French, because I don't. Not that the film will make any more sense." The driver printed the pass and pushed it through the window. "Wufei? You speak French?"  
  
"Yes." There was a seat in the back for two, but otherwise they couldn't sit together. Duo aimed at it, and walked right over feet and baggage in the aisle as the bus started moving. "But why not just go to an English film?"  
  
"What's it really matter? We're not going to watch anyway." Duo threw himself onto the seat. "You know what? I think this is our thing. Transportation."  
  
"Our thing?" Wufei eased down next to him, trying to keep his left side turned away from the eyes of the men and women around them.  
  
"Our couple thing." Duo took his hand, but just as quickly released him. "Wait!" he shouted. "We gotta get off."  
  
"Why? Duo?"  
  
"Tea."  
  
"Tea?"  
  
The driver was not happy, and some muttering followed their progress off. Duo spilled out into the street with his duffle swinging on his back. "Duo," Wufei repeated. The bus barely slowed for his final step, and then it was trundling off.  
  
"Tea." Duo's grin was brilliant as sunlight. "Your tin. We used the last. I'll get you more." He pointed. It was a tea shop, nestled between a doughnut shop and a laundry. "Is that a smile? It is. You're smiling. I like it."  
  
"Hush, you're drawing too much attention." They were still in his neighbourhood, and they were getting stares. He snagged Duo close to him, and Duo laughed brightly. "You're a madcap."  
  
"You're a weirdo. A weirdoer." Duo leant in. It was not a kiss--even Duo had sense enough--but it was charged, nonetheless. Wufei's pulse quickened.  
  
Then Duo's eyes slid sharply to the side. He tensed. Surprised, Wufei turned to follow his stare.  
  
"They're coming," Duo said. Red suffused his face in a sudden flash. "They're not supposed to approach us. You're not supposed to!" he shouted at them, and only Wufei's fingers around his wrist held him back from striding toward them.  
  
"Sir." There were five of them--no, seven, two holding back on either side of the street. Blocking exits. They'd been surrounded.  
  
Duo noticed just as he did. "No," he snarled. "No, you're not supposed to. Get away. Get the fuck away from us."  
  
"Sir." It was the man, the man from Wufei's pair who'd been following them in the boardwalk four days ago. He halted three yards at least from them, but the other agents spread out in a semi-circle. Wufei grabbed Duo's other wrist when he flicked a knife into his palm. The agents saw, and the two in the wings drew weapons.  
  
"I suggest you approach with caution," Wufei called out. Passerby were making themselves scarce. Mrs Chu pulled her young granddaughter up the steps and into the doorway. Tony Wong and two of the older men who worked construction stayed outside, but they backed to the walls, staring with still faces. Wufei had never been truly accepted in the community, but he was still one of their own, at least when the white police came to make trouble.  
  
"Mr Chang." The leader, if that's what he was, held both hands out to his side peaceably. "Sir, you're to come with us. We have questions to ask you."  
  
"You have no right." Duo nearly slipped free of him, completely oblivious to the slice of his little knife uncomfortably near Wufei's leg. Wufei forced him close and stood on his foot, applying all his weight. Duo's eyes were all for the Preventers slowly encircling them.  
  
"We do, Mr Maxwell. Please, let's keep this calm."  
  
"I'll be calm when you leave us alone!" Duo wrenched at Wufei's hold, and Wufei finally risked injury to them both to take the knife from him. He nearly broke Duo's thumb, bending it back, but Duo was riding a wave of adrenaline and fury and could have withstood far more pain than Wufei was willing to inflict. He tried to force Duo to face him, but couldn't get him to turn his head away.  
  
"Please stop," Wufei hissed at him. "This isn't helping me."  
  
Duo's expression was outright agony. "You don't know what they're capable of."  
  
"They just want to ask questions." He blinded Duo by putting his hands on both of Duo's temples, and forced Duo to meet his eyes. "It will be all right."  
  
It might have worked. He thought it had. Until one of the women unwisely chose that moment to close the distance, her arm outstretched to them.  
  
It all took on the speed of frantic chaos then. Duo was free of him in a split second, and the clatter of his duffle to the ground seemed to register only after he saw the gun coming from the front placket into Duo's palm. The girl let out a little shriek that was too late to stop anything. Duo swept her off her feet and away from the protection of the other agents. In only moments, Duo had her in a chokehold, the muzzle of his gun crammed to the underside of her chin.  
  
The Preventers weren't nearly so fast. They fumbled freeing their weapons from their holsters, as shocked as the bystanders, who finally made themselves scarce at the threat of gunfire. Six different shouting voices drowned each other out with commands for Duo to lower the gun.  
  
Wufei saw with frightening clarity what was going to happen. Preventers may have been wary of approaching Duo before, but seeing two Gundam Pilots in close company had tipped their cautious remove. Wufei had been the obvious target, the one with a history of cooperation, the stable, quiet one. And being stubbornly unwilling to admit their collusion in Hilde Schbeiker's death, they had completely underestimated Duo's hatred of them. Someone would die, and it would happen just as fast as Duo's plunge over the edge. And as much as Wufei didn't want it to be the scared girl hanging limply from Duo's arm, his only thought was stopping the Preventers from shooting Duo to save her life.  
  
"Duo," he said quietly, and stepped between Duo and the weapons aimed at him.  
  
"No." Duo shook his head. Sweat trailed down his neck as he swivelled to keep an eye on the Preventers behind him. The girl stumbled over her own feet as he dragged her along.  
  
"It will be fine," Wufei said. He kept his voice low, forcing Duo to listen to hear him. "Just please keep it together."  
  
"I can't let them do this to me again." He gripped the gun tighter, and behind him Wufei heard quickened breathing. They didn't interfere now, though. They'd at least realised the situation was out of the control they'd thought they had.  
  
"They're not doing anything to you. I'll go with them. It's just questions. Routine. I'll be back in a few hours." He dared a step more, and was glad when Duo didn't react to it. The girl was half their age, at least. Her dark hair was wild with the struggle, and Duo's forearm was strangling her slowly. Her face was red and Wufei could hear her struggling to breathe. Wufei met her eyes, silently beseeching her to be calm. He had no way of knowing if she understood.  
  
"Maxwell," someone behind him started.  
  
"Duo," Wufei interrupted, in time to swing Duo's gaze back to him, not to the idiot Preventers behind him. "That girl is someone else's Hilde," he said. "If you kill her, the circle begins again."  
  
Duo's hand loosened. Wufei knew he'd gotten through even before Duo let her ease away from him. She ran, stooping low to grab the gun Duo had forced her to drop only minutes earlier. Her hand didn't shake, but she stayed pale, breathing heavily.  
  
Duo's shoulders slumped. He dropped his head back on his neck, staring skyward. He let one of the men come forward and disarm him.  
  
"Thank you," Wufei said softly. "That was well done." Everyone knew the danger was over. The leader, the one who had spoken before, came to Wufei's back. Wufei felt him there, but didn't turn. "This won't stick," he said to Duo. "I haven't done anything wrong."  
  
"It doesn't matter!" Duo shook off the agent when he laid a hand on his shoulder. "They can make up charges, they can lie. They just lie, Wufei, you don't know, they just lie about everything."  
  
The man took his wrist from behind. He felt the cold metal of cuffs, but it was hidden, for at least another moment, from Duo. Wufei used his free hand to squeeze Duo's arm. "You have to keep it together. I can't get myself sorted out if I'm worrying about you. Please. I need you to be all right." Oh, these stupid agents. One of the women forced him away from Duo so they could strap his hands together at his back. Duo was wavering. "Just wait for me," Wufei tried.  
  
It was tenuous. Duo held on as long as Wufei managed to keep his eyes, but they turned him, and that was when he saw that the other agents still had their guns out, except for one with a second pair of cuffs. Of course. Of course they wouldn't let Duo just walk away after assaulting one of their team. But they had to see they couldn't do it like that, had to realise by now it wouldn't work--  
  
"I'm sorry," Duo moaned, and Wufei couldn't even be surprised when he ducked a slow grab and sprinted down the alley. Three split off after him, but Wufei already knew he was gone.  
  
He was gone.  
  
"Damnit," the agent behind him swore. He propelled Wufei up the street with a shove between the shoulder blades, and then the slight white noise of a radio flicked on. "We have Chang," the agent reported. "Maxwell flipped out. He completely flipped his shit."  
  
 _"Fuck,"_ was the succinct reply, tinny and remote. _"Fucking hell. If there's another lawsuit, you damn well better be able to deal with the fallout, Sandoval."_  
  
At least, Wufei imagined sadly, he could take the tiniest satisfaction from that.  
  
+  
  
The agent who came to question Wufei couldn't have been older than twenty-five, twenty-six at the outside. He was the kind of young man Preventers liked to recruit, as far as Wufei had ever seen. Young and naïve, with that obvious shine of prodigy, not unlike the Gundam Pilots had been, so long ago. And one of the first things he said to Wufei after asking after his comfort was, "I've always wanted this assignment, sir. Not this moment, but the chance to meet one of you. To speak to one of you."  
  
That did nothing to set Wufei at his ease. He was not, in fact, comfortable. He had been driven out of Melbourne entirely to the Preventers headquarters in Canberra, which all but guaranteed he wouldn't be back for Duo as he'd promised, if Duo hadn't already fled in the opposite direction. And after the long hot drive, he'd been left alone, though no doubt closely observed, in a chilly interrogation room on a cushionless metal chair, his wrists still cuffed and now painfully stiff from the restriction. He was both thirsty and in need of a private toilet, but he had sat rigid and silent, unwilling to betray the smallest need.  
  
When he failed to respond, the agent sat himself in the empty chair facing Wufei opposite the small, utilitarian table. It was an uncreative little room, exactly the same as the dozen Wufei had once spent untold hours in, repeating everything he could remember about Gundams and Operation Meteor and Dekim Barton. He was not inclined to be so open now.  
  
"I'm a colonial myself," the agent said. He laid a paper pad and an uncapped pen before him, but used neither. "The Gundams are heroes to my generation."  
  
"Heroes?" Wufei repeated. That irritated him, deeply, unexpectedly. His jaw hurt a little from being clenched so long. "Are you even aware of what's happening? Now? In this room? We were considered terrorists then, and we're trusted even less now."  
  
"No, sir," the agent disagreed politely. "I'm sorry, but I don't think that's entirely fair. You're watched, yes, but we've never hidden the reasons for it."  
  
He already regretted breaking his silence. "Is this part of the interrogation?" he demanded.  
  
"We have questions," the agent said. "I wouldn't call it an interrogation."  
  
"Am I under arrest?"  
  
The Preventer didn't want to answer that right away. Wufei rudely held his eyes, just as Duo would have done, as provocatively as he could.  
  
"We'd like to keep you here until we have time to conduct our investigation," the agent admitted finally.  
  
Wufei placed his cuffed hands on the table, in prominent view. "Am I under arrest?" he repeated, enunciating each word.  
  
"Only if you refuse to stay, sir."  
  
"On what charges?"  
  
"Suspicion of terrorist activity."  
  
The chill of the room suddenly seemed bone-deep. But he didn't protest. He knew it would do him no good. "If you're arresting me," he said, "I want an attorney. Before you ask a single question."  
  
"Sir, you are not entitled to an attorney."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Preventers are excepted from the restrictions of habeas corpus, amongst other rights normally granted citizens of the Earth Sphere. I didn't even have to tell you why we're holding you."  
  
"So you have nothing on me, except a few suspicions, and the fact that I've already served fifteen years. But you'll keep me here, because you can?" Wufei clasped his hands on his knee, and sat back in his creaking chair. "Excuse me, but that isn't how one treats a hero."  
  
They sat in dead quiet for nearly three full minutes then. The agent sighed, then, and gathered his props into a neat pile lined symmetrically with the edge of the table. "I think I'll have someone bring us dinner," he said. "And tea. We serve very good tea here."  
  
"Is that standard operating procedure when you have a criminal in custody?" Wufei returned.  
  
"No, sir. Nothing about the Gundam Pilots is standard."  
  
"There are no Gundam Pilots any longer. There haven't been for almost two decades."  
  
"That doesn't change the fact that there were." Wufei couldn't tell if the sympathy suddenly facing him was real, or intended to disarm him. He refused to acknowledge it. "My name is Devinder Chadhur. Everyone calls me Devi."  
  
He had the tinge of Australian twang that suggested long emigration. It lent a friendliness, an entirely inappropriate cheer, to what Wufei was sure were lies. He didn't trust so much as the man's name, and he trusted the gesture it represented even less. "We are not friends," he said flatly. "Agent."  
  
Chadhur's nostrils flared on the inhale. He rose, and touched a button on the intercom by the two-way mirror. "Could someone please bring a few take-away menus," he asked it. "And a pot of--is it sencha green, Mr Chang?"  
  
They'd been in his flat. That explained the long wait. Wufei kept his face still as stone.  
  
"Sencha green," Chadhur repeated. His finger left the button. "Mr Chang," he said then, "this doesn't have to be unpleasant. No bright lights here, no waterboards or anything the like. We have no intention of denying you any necessity."  
  
Wufei displayed his hands again, clenched fists upturned in the bright steel bands binding them. "None except my freedom."  
  
Casually, Chadhur said, "It appears that Mr Maxwell has managed to evade his watchers again. He's gotten pretty good at that, over the years. From what I understand, the usual odds are twenty-four hours, once he's made an agent."  
  
"Why are you still watching him?" Wufei asked.  
  
"Our agency was created to monitor threats to peace. In our experience, Gundam Pilots are usually at the centre of any kind of disturbance. Willingly or otherwise."  
  
The canned and ready answer annoyed him. "That's nonsense."  
  
"It's logic." There was a knock at the door. Chadhur opened it, and took a handful of papers from a woman outside. "I recommend Veeraswamy," he said. "Although you can't beat The Harbour View for seafood." He set the menus between them, and took one for himself.  
  
Wufei ignored them. "I don't follow your 'logic'," he said. "Maybe you should enlighten me."  
  
The agent answered easily, with all appearance of honesty. "I admit, it's been two decades since a Pilot involved himself directly in any conflict. But indirectly, each of you have been involved, many times, in the schemes and ambitions of others. While you and Trowa Barton were still imprisoned, a man named Ralph Kurt attempted to secure the remaining Gundams to start a revolution in the Colonies. Mr Maxwell, Mr Yuy, and Mr Winner almost single-handedly managed to destroy his organisation, though I believe Preventers provided some important intelligence." He flipped to the back side of his menu. "Later, as I'm sure you know, a fundamentalist off-shoot of White Fang focussed their energy on Mr Maxwell and his partner. Mr Yuy aided us in discovering a rebel cabal operating outside the Mars Colony, calling themselves Third Circle. You've all led very busy lives, really."  
  
"But based on what you're telling me, most of our time has been spent solving problems, rather than creating them. And yet we're all under surveillance. Why?"  
  
"I think your objections have more to do with your very well documented stubbornness. I hope you won't mind terribly if I disregard them, for the moment at least." He scribbled a note in the margins of the menu. "Made your choice yet? No? I'll get jalfrezi curry for us both." He rose to pass the note outside, but rather than return to the table, he leaned on the mirror, his hands stuck in his pockets in a pose that did not put Wufei at his ease. He waited, unwilling to make the next move. The Preventers were the ones with the agenda; Wufei would save his energy until he knew what that agenda was.  
  
Chadhur, as Wufei had known he would, broke the silence. "In the interest of coming to the point, let's simply get started, shall we?"  
  
"By all means."  
  
The door opened a third time. Chadhur returned to the table with a box full of plastic bags. He opened one of them, and spread the contents in a fan in the middle of the table. "You recognise these?"  
  
It was his mail. Months' worth of mail. "How did you get those?" Wufei demanded.  
  
"Your mail is monitored, Mr Chang. Suspicious mail is intercepted. Sometimes we send it on. Sometimes we retain it." He pushed a few envelopes toward Wufei. "This was all received, and opened, by you."  
  
"You didn't have a warrant to obtain those."  
  
"We don't require one."  
  
He had nothing to say to that. He picked up his mail, four slim handfuls into a pile before him. They were out of order, so he sifted them, from earliest date to latest. It gave him time to calm the raging storm of thoughts in himself.  
  
"If you've read these," he said, "you'll know they were just innocent personal correspondences."  
  
"With whom do you correspond?" Chadhur asked him.  
  
"I thought you knew."  
  
"We're checking your answers against our known facts."  
  
It was almost condescending, that bare-faced honesty. Wufei laughed.   
  
"These are from Mariemaia Barton."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why did she write to you?"  
  
"We're friends. Not--collaborators."  
  
The agent seized on that. "And yet she has asked you to collaborate." He reached for the stack and took it. He selected one of the letters, and held it up so the writing on the envelope faced Wufei. "She claims to be writing a book."  
  
He'd forgotten that. Genuinely forgotten. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, just as the room resolved into focus, as everything, the purpose of all of this stageplay, became clear. "Hell. She is."  
  
"In fact, she's asked to interview you."  
  
"Yes. And I agreed."  
  
"You can understand our concern."  
  
He clasped his hands between his knees. "No, frankly, I can't. Unless you consider it a crime for the two of us to be in the same room."  
  
"If within that same room you collaborate in criminal activity, yes." Chadhur set the letters aside. "Were you aware that she's also contacted a number of Dekim Barton's former adjutants?"  
  
"That's not proof she's plotting a coup."  
  
"Were you aware of it."  
  
He exerted his most rigid control over his breathing. There was no way of knowing what bodily functions they were capable of monitoring, but if he allowed himself to become stressed by the questions, even the most untrained observer could draw any kind of conclusion. "No," he said calmly. "But it doesn't take much imagination to come to the conclusion she'd find the information gleaned from them useful writing her book."  
  
"Nor does it take much of a leap to imagine that a book is a very handy excuse for taking a poll on what loyalties might remain available to her."  
  
"She was a child," Wufei said. "Being manipulated by a twisted old man, and she nearly lost her life the last time. I can't imagine why she'd risk more than she's lost already."  
  
The young man shrugged. "Revenge is a powerful motivator. So is ambition. There's a healthy dose of that in her family genes, surely."  
  
"She's not genetically related to any of them. Barton himself confessed he'd found her as an orphan on the street. He picked her for her superficial resemblance--"  
  
"That assertion has long been disputed."  
  
His frustration reached a boiling point. He clenched his hands to fists, and exhaled hard from his nose. "You'll manufacture a case because it will validate your suspicions, whether there is any real evidence or not. Have I been charged?"  
  
"No, you've not been charged." Chadhur's unlined, youthful face was a blank to him. "We're asking questions. It's our job."  
  
"Are you going to arrest her?" he guessed. "Have you already?"  
  
"No. Nor have we asked her to come in for questions, as we have with you."  
  
"You're beginning with me, is that it?" But then he felt an obscure relief. He really had been the target, not Duo.  
  
"Not beginning, no," Chadhur disagreed amiably. "But you were high on our list of persons of interest."  
  
"Persons of interest." They were falling into the rhythm now. The Preventer was playing a game, now, balancing the conversational tone with those driving questions designed to increase Wufei's paranoia, increase his visible reactions. Wufei knew a dozen techniques to resist, to disrupt Chadhur's control and authority. But was it worth it? Resisting only suggested he had something to hide, which would mean they'd detain him longer, subject him to those harsher interrogation methods he was quite sure they did not, in fact, disdain.  
  
He asked, "Has there been any actual event yet or is this supposedly preemptive?"  
  
"Our job is to anticipate disturbances."  
  
"You're looking in the wrong quarter."  
  
"When we've determined that, you'll be free to go."  
  
Chadhur made it sound so reasonable. In his mind, it probably was. Submit, and everything will go easier for you.  
  
Wufei folded his hands over his knees and relaxed his shoulders. "Ask your questions, then."  
  
"Thank you." Chadhur uncapped a pen from the breast coat of his jacket, and set the point to his pad. "What did Mariemaia Barton want to interview you about?"  
  
"She wanted to know why I fought in a conflict I never believed in."  
  
"Why did you?"  
  
He didn't answer right away, but only because there was no simple way to explain. He doubted this slip of a youth, or any of his puppet masters, would comprehend the complexity of emotion and tangled, disappointed hope that had driven Wufei back to Dekim Barton's war.  
  
"Duty," he said finally.  
  
"To whom? The Bartons? Treize Khushrenada?"  
  
"My wife. My family. My colony." To all his elders, who had agreed to and funded Operation Meteor with the full intent of raining destruction on the same Earth that had brought biological weapons against L5. Christians called it an eye for an eye. Meiran had called it that. She'd been so bloodthirsty, so furious. Wufei had never understood her, not until he'd lit incense for her in death. Even now, he did not know if he had failed her, failed their clans. He was old enough to know that he would never know, not until he saw them again.  
  
He'd fallen quiet. He came back to himself with a jolt. He'd turned his head without thinking, was staring at his reflection in the mirror. His own, and this young child in uniform. Sometimes it seemed all of history boiled down to children caught up in forces beyond them.  
  
Chadhur was watching him closely, drinking in the clues he'd unwittingly supplied. Wufei lifted a hand to pull his hair from behind his ear, an automatic reflex to hide his scarred cheek. Too late, he realized he should not have done that.  
  
Chadhur put aside his pen. His hands went flat on the table in unknowing imitation of Wufei's, beneath the surface. The change in posture was the only foreshadow Wufei was given, but he realized the significance. They were done being friendly.  
  
"If Mariemaia Barton asked you to join her in any conspiracy to subvert the peaceful operation of the current government, would you agree to join her?"  
  
"I'm not a soldier any more," Wufei said.  
  
"Would you agree to join her."  
  
"No." Wufei wet his lips, and took the offencive. "Who's feeding you the questions?"  
  
Chadhur acknowledged the shift with a deep inhale, but his expression stayed pleasant and closed. "There are a number of people listening to this interview."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"No names that would mean anything to you."  
  
"How can you be so sure?"  
  
"Commanders Levinson and Blomfeld. General Barrett Smith. Australia's Secretary of the Interior Rino Jones. And by teleconference, Deputy Director Hilary Sainte-James."  
  
"I must have done something very serious," he said sarcastically.  
  
"We take any interaction with the Gundam Pilots very seriously."  
  
"We're back to that."  
  
"We never really left the topic." Chadhur sat forward, and just like that, the advantage swung back to him. "Why did you arrange to meet Duo Maxwell?"  
  
"No one arranged anything," Wufei denied immediately, though he worried, suddenly, just how closely they had been observed. He'd always taken for granted that their distant trailing was just that. "It was a happy coincidence."  
  
"Had you corresponded with him previous to his arrival in Melbourne?"  
  
"I wouldn't have known where to find him."  
  
"Have you had any contact with him since leaving prison?"  
  
"Not until we ran into each other a few days ago. Surely you know all of this already, if it's your _job_."  
  
Chadhur put a hand into his pocket. When it emerged, he set a plastic pill bottle on the table between them. "Do you recognise these?"  
  
No, he didn't. He studied the bottle without touching it. There was a doctor's label, an address he didn't know. "The prescription says Dona Aguilar. I don't know who that is."  
  
"I'm surprised," Chadhur said. "They were found in your flat."  
  
"That's a lie."  
  
"No, it's not." Chadhur gave him a few seconds, to take it back, he supposed. Wufei stubbornly met his eyes. "Do they belong to you?"  
  
"Apparently they belong to a Miss Dona Aguilar."  
  
"Do you know what they are?"  
  
"No. I don't. They're not mine. I've never seen them until just this moment." He forced a contemptuous smile to his lips. "Are you bringing drug charges against me now, in addition to... what is it you suspect me of? Conspiracy?"  
  
"No drug charges, no." Chadhur smiled, too, a little twitch of the lips that had nothing to do with the intent look in his eyes. "Do you have difficulty achieving restful sleep?"  
  
"The last time I checked, that wasn't a crime."  
  
"Enough difficulty to seek a black-market medical prescription?"  
  
He knew. Oh, he knew. Duo.  
  
He kept his smile in place with sheer effort of will. "Test me."  
  
"Should we?" Chadhur picked up the bottle. The cap popped gently coming off. The pills spilled over the table, white and green gelcaps rolling unhindered over the metal. "It's a strong drug, Lorazepam. High dose. And even though this was filled two weeks ago to last a month, it's nearly empty." He nudged one of the pills with a fingertip. "I think someone medicating himself so heavily, and illegally, must have very large demons to fight."  
  
"Maybe when your operatives were stealing my mail, one of them dropped his meds."  
  
Chadhur chuckled, disarmingly. "Maybe." He scooped the pills back into the bottle and set it aside. "Have you been in contact with any of the other Pilots? Trowa Barton?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Quatre Winner?"  
  
"We talk on the phone. Occasionally. The last call was on his birthday in June."  
  
"Did you discuss Mariemaia Barton's book?"  
  
"It didn't come up, no."  
  
"What about Heero Yuy?"  
  
It was only in his imagination, but his scars burned, until he put it out of his mind. "Not since the war. We aren't-- friends."  
  
"What about other members of rebel sects? Zechs Merquise? Lucrezia Noin?"  
  
"No."  
  
There was a pause, then, off the rhythm. Chadhur was listening to those voices from outside. His eyes dipped to the left.  
  
"The food is here," Chadhur said. "I'll have someone take you to the washroom. Perhaps once you've eaten, you'll be more comfortable."  
  
"I wouldn't count on it." The agent was standing, gathering his things together. "Am I free to go?"  
  
"No, sir, with apologies."  
  
"You can't detain me indefinitely without filing charges."  
  
"Not indefinitely, no, sir, but certainly overnight."  
  
Wufei had no illusions that would be all. "Do I get a call?"  
  
"If there's anyone you would like notified, we can do that for you."  
  
Anyone he named would be their next 'person of interest.' The few numbers that he had, anyway. The one person he wanted to call had no way of receiving it.  
  
"No," he said.


	6. Chapter 6

The cell they brought him to was the lone open door in a long white hallway of doors. It had a cot and a wash station and nothing more. No window. No timepiece. He would have nothing to alleviate his own thoughts.  
  
Which were dark, that first night. He knew already that they would not release him. How long would he serve this time? Five years, ten? Another fifteen years? And brought down, this time as before, by his own naïveté. He'd done nothing to offend the Sphere except imagine he was unimportant enough to do as he pleased.  
  
He wondered where Duo was, now. Before, when he'd gone to prison, he'd at least had the comfort of damning only himself by his rebellion. But he'd so quickly come to feel responsible for Duo, who was so lonely he would approach even a man like Wufei for companionship, who was so self-assured one moment and so lost the next. Had Trowa felt like that, in those days so long ago when he had taken Wufei under his wing? He barely remembered it happening. Before he'd even been released from the hospital ward Trowa had been there, stopping the men who would sneak in to pinch off a vital IV, to poison his food. They were Gundam Pilots.  
  
Gundam Pilots. It all came down to that. A sliver of his life, a single year out of dozens. But it would define him forever.  
  
He slept, but only from exhaustion. They didn't turn off the overhead light. It wasn't bright, but it still burned his eyes when he stared long enough.  
  
+  
  
They brought him to the same room, the same hard chair and table, the same wrist cuffs to bind him, as if he could possibly run anywhere. They fed him, bland oatmeal and toast and fruit in syrup too sugary for Wufei's ascetic tastes. Devi Chadhur came at what he said was eight o'clock, though Wufei had seen nothing to prove that right or wrong. He came with thick files, and he wasted no time before starting his questions.  
  
This time, Wufei did not answer. He sat silently, all morning, until Chadhur tired of his resistance.  
  
After lunch, they put him back in his cell.  
  
They left him there for days, alone  
  
.+  
  
The longer they left him alone, the more determined Wufei was that they would have nothing from him that he didn't choose to give them. He stopped thinking in English, turning instead to the Mandarin of his youth. It forced him to reorganise, forced him to refocus. English was direct and loud, serious, self-centred. Mandarin was warm, inclusive; it reminded him of the proper carriage, the stillness he needed from his centre. In Mandarin, a man was never just one single man. It made his meditation easier, until he could meditate for hours at a time, clearing his mind of all thought until he felt peace from within, not settling like a sheet of his own will from without. But the thing he could not conquer was his body. He exercised as he could, performing every taolu of wushu that he remembered, but his body was no longer cooperative. Weakness from lack of movement made him clumsier than he'd been even as a beginner. He was sure they watched him, and so he was afraid to push himself to the point where his failings would be obvious. His resolve wavered at night, when he could not rest because of how little activity he had during the day.  
  
Then, with no design that he could understand, his guards opened his cell and took him back to the room.  
  
Chadhur was already there, lounging in his chair with a cup. Tea. Wufei could smell it, and the cream from the small tray on the table. Wufei took his seat, his face as blank as he could make it.  
  
The agent said, "At some point they'll authorise me to take away showers and fresh clothes."  
  
Wufei inhaled deeply, slowly, and rested his hands between his thighs. "I'm aware of how it works," he replied. "After that, my diet will be changed as well. You're wasting your time. There's not a thing for me to give you."  
  
"You may not believe you have anything to give us, but that doesn't make it true."  
  
"Then maybe you should tell me what it is you want to hear, and I'll confirm or deny it."  
  
Chadhur smiled. It was a nice smile, the kind of smile Lotharios used to pick up blushing women, all charm and white teeth. Entirely inappropriate to the adversarial relationship they truly had. He said, "The prison psychologist at Éclatant Attentes described you as... what's her word." He opened one of his files. They were all dog-eared now, marked with brightly coloured tabs that bristled like a comb's teeth from the sides. "'Crusty.'"  
  
"I prefer 'stubborn'," Wufei said.  
  
"I don't think 'stubborn' quite captures your character, though."  
  
"Opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one." It was something Trowa would say. Had said. He matched Trowa's tone from memory, dead-pan, unamused.  
  
But Chadhur, who doubtlessly slept just fine, laughed aloud as if Wufei had made a great joke. "Here. Eat. You never know when I'll take it away from you." He uncovered a plate from the edge of the table and pushed it near Wufei's side. Dumplings. Freshly steamed, heat still rising from them in little wisps, carrying the scent of lotus.  
  
They were treats, dianxin, to be eaten with tea among friends. He hadn't had one in-- because he didn't indulge in treats, and he had no friends. He suspected Chadhur knew very well the insult he implied.  
  
Which meant Chadhur expected him to refuse. What did he gain from that? What did it mean, why pretend ignorance of Wufei's culture but make such a loaded offer? Unless it truly was ignorance. Sou could be bought frozen at any market in the Chinese quarter. But he still hesitated. Was it worth depriving himself, even if it was mockery? Or perhaps it was only a test of his courage. How far would he dare? Chadhur surely expected him to refuse.  
  
He took one. The dough was fluffy and light. The lotus seed paste oozed over his tongue, warm and sweet.  
  
Chadhur took one, too. His bite was too large to be seemly. He leaned back with his notes.  
  
Wufei took his time consuming the bun, chewing slowly and thoroughly. It was better than he remembered. "What else did she say?"  
  
"Your psychologist?"  
  
"We weren't talking about my hairdresser."  
  
"Major depressive disorder. Sleep disorder. Assorted physical symptoms that could manifest as psychological."  
  
"Physical symptoms?" he repeated harshly. "Are those her words for incapacitating--" Too late he heard himself. He closed his lips over the incriminating word and stared down at the plate of buns.  
  
Chadhur went on softly, casually. "She noted severe headaches, short-term memory loss, occasional cognitive dysfunction, abnormal EEGs, chronic fatigue. Sensitivity to light."  
  
"Interrogation techniques don't change much."  
  
"Generally we find the classics are the best."  
  
"Then I imagine your psychologist here will report the same symptoms. Is today's session going to focus on my supposed, various manias?"  
  
"I'm not interested in monitoring your long-term development," Chadhur said. "This is not a correction facility."  
  
"What would you call it?"  
  
"We're here to determine whether you're a risk to the health of the Earth Sphere, not to yourself."  
  
He was dry-mouthed. Chadhur wouldn't stoop to drugging the buns, the agent wasn't so crass, but his stomach was unhappy. "If I'm that damned dangerous, transfer me to the prison of your choice and the world will be safe again."  
  
"Call me an optimist." Chadhur put another bun between his teeth and flipped to a new file. "I believe the truth will always out. You've been here almost a month. Long enough for the reality to sink in, for the memories to start keeping you up at night. You're outraged, right now, you're clinging to the anger-- you are stubborn-- to keep you going because you believe you don't deserve this. But anger has a pretty short half-life. In another month, or maybe even the month after that, you'll be done fighting this war with me. When that happens, you'll answer my questions, and I will send you home." He licked his fingers. "I'm not here to be cruel to you," he went on. "I take no enjoyment out of it, sir. But as much as you believe you don't deserve to be here, I believe the world deserves to know for sure."  
  
That was too much. Wufei felt the surge of temper start, but the explosion was numbingly, blindingly immediate. The plate clattered to the floor, scattering the buns to the corners. He was on his feet without remembering standing, he was leaning over Chadhur with his hands clenched to fists. "You haven't asked me anything," he snarled, and undid all his careful plans not to react to their provocations.  
  
Chadhur did not shrink back. He said, "Are you in collusion with Mariemaia Barton to raise a military force?"  
  
His breath trembled in his chest. "No."  
  
Chadhur closed his folders and stood. "You'll have a shower tonight. Possibly the next night. Sleep well, sir."  
  
"That's all? One question? No follow-up? No..." He stopped himself with an effort that left him shaking. Shameful, humiliating-- to be so weak.  
  
Chadhur shut the door behind him.  
  
+  
  
Every day he waited for them to summon him again.  
  
They'd succeeded in rousing a reaction from him. He'd engaged their puppet, he'd responded. He'd dialogued. Any experienced negotiator would have him at that table again, would be pressing the advantage, not giving him time to recoup.  
  
Or maybe it was brilliant, after all. He'd known his mistake as he was making it. He'd been furious, enraged at himself, at Chadhur, not ready, not fooled. And Chadhur believed that he was lying, so he would have taken Wufei's honest answer as one more falsehood, one more sign that he wasn't ready to cooperate.  
  
He was nearing desperation.  
  
What would happen when he did break, and there were no secrets to spill?  
  
+  
  
The day came when he couldn't bring himself to leave his cot.  
  
They'd never taken anything from him, not even something as simple as clean linens. The threat remained, hour after hour. It wore on him, even though he knew exactly what they were doing.  
  
He stayed in his bed for four meal cycles. He would have been there longer, but something changed.  
  
Chadhur came to him.  
  
The peremptory knock at his door was the same, except that he'd only recently been disturbed to be given a fresh jumpsuit of grey cotton. He stirred on his pillow to look.  
  
"You're early," he said.  
  
"It's my day off." Chadhur wore plainclothes, not the impeccable olive uniform. His shirt-tails were loose and wrinkled, even. He tapped Wufei's feet under the thin blanket. "Budge up?"  
  
Maybe he was hallucinating.  
  
Chadhur sat on the edge of the cot. "It's a Saturday," he said. He looked about Wufei's cell incuriously, his hands flat, then cupping his knees. "I know they don't tell you the dates. I thought you might like to know."  
  
"Thank you." He had water in a glass on the floor. He sipped it, and stayed curled away from the agent. He regretted his laziness, but only dimly. Saturday. It was hardly a gift. It didn't even mean anything.  
  
Chadhur fidgeted with something metallic. Car keys, he saw in a glance. Twirling them between fingers.  
  
"Duo Maxwell was sighted in the colonies," the agent said.  
  
"And next week he'll be somewhere else."  
  
"For his sake, I hope so. He assaulted another agent. There's a warrant been issued for his arrest."  
  
It made his chest seize tight. He doubled the thin pillow under his cheek to hide the shaking in his hands. "When are the Preventers going to stop stalking us? None of us is plotting to destroy the peace we sacrificed so much to achieve. None of us ever will."  
  
"I find that interesting." Chadhur was watching him. The keys flipped, twice, again. "Coming from you."  
  
"Interesting or ironic?"  
  
He heard a chuckle. "Both, I suppose. Oh, I don't dispute that you sacrificed. But for peace?"  
  
Another sip of the tepid water. "Why else would I?"  
  
"Dekim Barton was not interested in peace. Nor, I can assure you, is his granddaughter."  
  
Mariemaia again. Mariemaia always. He didn't even know what she looked like, now. "Have you arrested her yet?"  
  
"Do you show all your cards at once?"  
  
"I don't play games."  
  
"No? Then what were you doing with Duo Maxwell?"  
  
He couldn't conduct this-- conversation lying down. He sat up, though his body ached; sharp pains at his shoulders and back from lying horizontal too long, and the stiffness of his burns resisting being pulled. Chadhur offered him a hand, but he ignored it. He said, "Duo Maxwell is my friend."  
  
"You told me you hadn't seen him since the Barton Rebellion. He became your friend in five days?"  
  
"We were friends during the war. We didn't stop being friends just because time and distance separated us." I wanted to kiss you that night, Duo had said. They'd been alone in that cell, too, two boys, hearing alarms all through the Lunar Base but unable to determine why; Heero had been gone so long, so much longer than normal. And then the air, the quiet flow of air through the vents had stopped-- and it had all been silence.  
  
He had planned to die in communion with the honoured dead of his clan. But he had still felt Duo's fingers, frantic and then grasping, clinging to his shirt, his wrist.  
  
He would give anything to be back there now, even facing death, if only to have a second chance to die with Duo. A better death than the slow madness he faced here.  
  
Duo would die in a place like this. Duo would want to die.  
  
"Mr Chang."  
  
"Are you a liar, Chadhur?"  
  
Chadhur smiled at his scrutiny. "I like to think not. For this job, yes. I am often called upon to twist the truth." He slipped his keys away, and his hands lay flat then. "Are you asking if I've lied to you?"  
  
"Haven't you?" He interrupted before the young man could answer. "You're not off the clock now. This isn't a friendly visit. It's not even your day off." He felt bitter laughter stir in his throat. "Is it even Saturday?"  
  
"Will you believe me now if I contradict you?" Chadhur stood. He took a stance on the wall opposite Wufei, only a few steps away, his arms crossed loosely. "Were you romantically involved with Duo Maxwell during the war?"  
  
"No." He scraped his hair from his face. He hadn't even brushed it after his shower the night before, and it was flat and tangled.  
  
"Agents observed you kissing in a restaurant. Your neighbours saw you holding hands in several venues."  
  
"You asked if we were romantically involved during the war."  
  
"You're romantically involved now. Even though you haven't seen him since the war. Even though he only made contact with you five days before we picked you up."  
  
It was almost long enough to braid, in back. This time, the laughter that threatened him was nearly hysterical.  
  
"We were," he said. "Now I am here and he is running from the Preventers harassing him."  
  
"Here's what I think happened." Chadhur slid into a crouch, his eyes intent on Wufei, who intently denied his gaze. "Mariemaia Barton," Chadhur said, "contacted you via her letters once you were released from prison. You agreed to meet with her, knowing she was using this 'book' idea as a cover for gathering her old crowd of supporters around her. Maxwell, now, Maxwell was the part I couldn't figure out. I'm not a big fan of random coincidences. But I think that's exactly what Maxwell was. A random coincidence. But a propitious one. He approached you, and he's full of, yes, entirely justified anger and hatred for the Preventers, who are the very people who broke apart the Barton Rebellion. I think you drew him into your conspiracy with Mariemaia Barton. I think he's out there right now contacting others. And I think that he's going to do my work for me, drawing them out, drawing them into the open. And when we know who they are, we will arrest them, and him, and they will all go to jail for a very long time." He waited for a response. Wufei refused to grant him one.  
  
"Did you know he murdered a woman?" Chadhur added. "If we bring him in, it will be for a far harsher sentence than simple conspiracy."  
  
He spoke through a dry throat. "That's quite the story you've fabricated. And I can see how you and others like you would like to believe it. I might have myself if I were a Preventer. Paranoia is in your job description. But it's fiction. Complete fiction."  
  
"Is it?"  
  
"I exchanged a few letters with Ms Barton. None of them had anything to do with another attempt at world domination."  
  
Chadhur sighed heavily. His hands made fists in the edges of Wufei's sight.  
  
He knocked the door with his elbow. "I'm done," he called to the guard.  
  
Wufei stirred as it opened. He said, "Only one of us is a liar, Chadhur."  
  
The agent turned back. It was quiet between them, quiet even outside when the guard didn't dare to interrupt. The unflickering fluorescent above was steady, never bright enough, never the darkness he craved.  
  
"For the record," the agent said, "it is a Saturday. It's even really my day off. And I'm not lying about this, either-- we will bring Maxwell in. And I think you'd rather we don't. So if you won't help yourself, maybe you'll consider helping him."  
  
+  
  
He did consider it. He thought of it obsessively, from every angle, doubled over his own supposition until he couldn't untangle whether it was immoral or just stupid.  
  
And when his nails were bitten to the quick and he couldn't stomach even the porridge they brought him for breakfast, he considered suicide, too. He knew how to slow his own heartbeat, knew how to stop his own breathing. He would slip away in sleep, sleep he could barely remember now, and they would lose all the leverage they thought they had with him, they would lose their precious game.  
  
Except that in doing so he might well condemn Duo. Duo would not survive months of interrogation like this, this purposefully gentle approach that was far more effective than torture. He would go mad-- madder-- at the lack of sun, he would attack one of them, he would be punished for it-- he thought of suicide and he thought of Duo thinking of suicide, and though he had never asked to be responsible for another life, Duo had asked him to be, by asking him to be a friend; and he couldn't choose just his own release.  
  
And Chadhur refused to call him back. It was torture, it was deliberate and it was cruel. He dreamed even though he didn't sleep, reliving a dozen memories like nightmares. Heero Yuy's suit plunging away to the ocean as Wufei's console fractured from the force of their battle and erupted in flame. The flame, all too brief, from the explosion of his colony, his clan, his entire world, his absolute conviction that it was meaningless. You couldn't change anything once you were dead; that was the gift of life, the burden of life, change--  
  
Duo still smiled. Duo still smiled. He knew next to nothing about Duo, had never even asked why he'd used to wear that priest collar, why he'd stopped. What he did know fit in one of Wufei's tiny teacups, but it filled his mind-- the dimple in the left cheek when he laughed, that little scar by his eye, the bitter taste of his coffee on his tongue, the warm velvet softness of the skin of his stomach.  
  
He couldn't remember what Trowa felt like, and he'd thought he'd loved Trowa. But he'd never attempted to contact Trowa once he was released; it had never even occurred to him to try. He'd picked Australia for the Sydney Opera House, not even for a good reason like it was far away from the others, just from some slip of memory hearing about it once, Sydney Opera House where they still performed Er Huang operas like The Legend of Red Lantern, and even in China they didn't keep the traditions--  
  
They turned off his light, then, and never turned it back on.  
  
When the door opened on his darkness, the brightness behind the frame blinded him. "Come out," the guard said. "Come on, then."  
  
There was Chadhur in their little room, calm-faced at Wufei's entrance. And a woman. It had been so long since Wufei had seen a new face that he almost flinched from the sheer unexpectedness of it. She was older than him, perhaps fifty, and there was something cold in her eyes that promised unpleasantness.  
  
Let them bring it, Wufei thought wearily. What else could he suffer before they were done with him?  
  
Tea. Again. This time Chadhur poured for Wufei first, as he ought to have done with the dianxin. "Oolong," Chadhur said. "Very fine, Mr Chang."  
  
"No," he declined quietly.  
  
"I don't think you need to worry about it keeping you up at night."  
  
"No thank you," he said again. His voice was rusty, so long unused.  
  
Chadhur's eyes dipped, and stayed down for a long time. He inhaled just before he began to speak again. "I wondered if you've thought at all about what we spoke of, last time."  
  
"You know that I have." He had no energy even to worry at the stiffness in his bad hand. He pressed his fist to his stomach. "You meant me to."  
  
"Have you made any decisions, Mr Chang?"  
  
"Yes." The woman leaned forward, predatory. Chadhur at least was still. Wufei stared back. He said, "I'm not going to make any false confession or accusations to give you another victim."  
  
Chadhur's mouth pulled tight. Then, suddenly, he laughed.  
  
"Sir, I admire your integrity."  
  
"Is that what it is?" Wufei retorted bitterly. He discovered he was shaking. He couldn't quell it, or the nausea that wrenched his gut in tight knots.  
  
"It was the nicer of the words that occurred to me."  
  
"What was the other?"  
  
"Damn stubborn mule."  
  
"I will not lie," Wufei said. "Not to save myself. Not even to save Duo. And there is nothing to tell the truth about."  
  
There were folders on the table before Chadhur. He always had the folders when they spoke in this room. He opened the top one now, and put photographs before Wufei, tossed them down with negligent flicks of his wrist so that they fell atop each other and lay scattered.  
  
"They wanted me to show you these. They're fakes, though."  
  
The woman by the wall stirred, and frowned.  
  
They were pictures of Duo. Being arrested, being questioned, sitting bound and hooded in a room just like Wufei's cell. He wanted to be numb to them, and the photoshopping was plain when he looked for it, because all the pictures of Duo were too young. They still hurt, though.  
  
He swallowed painfully. "I would have known without your confession."  
  
"Call it a gesture of faith." Chadhur crumpled one and let it drop. The shadows from the neat folds of his turban hid his eyes, until he moved his head again.  
  
"The only gesture of faith that will mean anything is my release from this facility." Wufei raised his own head. "Eventually you'll give up, and admit you've made a mistake."  
  
And then, it happened. He had entirely stopped waiting for it, but it happened, all the same.  
  
"For once," Chadhur said, "I'm ahead of you." A new folder, a new paper. His pen moved for the first time, a quick precise scratch at the bottom. He put the sheet before Wufei, facing him, placed it precisely and gently. "This is my sworn statement that I've concluded you are, in fact, innocent of conspiracy." He rose. "You won't be allowed to keep it, but I wanted you to see it in writing, at least. I won't say it was a pleasure, Mr Chang, but it was an honour." He extended his hand.  
  
It had the quality of one of his dreams, feverish in intensity, thick like water all around him, forcing him to swim for something solid. He couldn't read the paper at first. He couldn't read it at all. Just the signature, blue ink on the white page. He unclenched his fingers under the table. When his open palm rose, he stared at it. He let Chadhur take it and squeeze.  
  
Not real. Not real.  
  
It wasn't.  
  
Chadhur squeezed his hand. "Director Tindale will be overseeing your case now, sir. I apologise, deeply. I wish this was the end of the road."  
  
"I didn't really expect it was." He had his hand back, released almost tenderly. He was shaking, trembling like a leaf in a headwind. He hadn't bent. He hadn't bent--  
  
His forehead touched the cool metal table. The tears spilling from his eyes were hot and they stung, but the table was cool on his cheek. He was too exhausted to cry long, but he had no strength left to stop it from happening, either.  
  
He didn't even hear Chadhur and the woman leave.  
  
+  
  
Eight more meal cycles, uninterrupted by questions, by falsified photographs, by thought. He slept, finally, but it was more like unconsciousness than rest. He was heavy-limbed and light-headed when he woke.  
  
Eight more meal cycles, and then they didn't bring his breakfast.  
  
He waited, but Chadhur never showed, and the guard outside his cell was unresponsive even to questions about the time. The morning wore on, grindingly slow, and there was only silence from the Preventers.  
  
It was nearly noon, by all he could figure, when they finally came for him, and when they did, he was shocked. It was the agent who had arrested him and the woman from his last interrogation. They were carrying the cardboard box of his things, and when they opened his door, they left it open.  
  
"When you've dressed, please follow Sandoval," the woman instructed him gruffly. "You're free to go."  
  
"I'm free to go," he repeated, disbelieving it. "Just like that."  
  
"Yes, sir." She met his eyes without revealing anything--which revealed something in itself, he thought. "Please follow Sandoval. There will be paperwork to sign." She inclined her head, and left without looking back. Sandoval set his box on the cot, and politely stepped outside the cell--with that open door--to give him privacy.  
  
No. No. He was free? They wouldn't do this if he weren't. He felt shaken by it, by the surreality of it, the lack of all reason and logic. All this time, and just like that?  
  
Everything was in the box exactly as it had been when they'd bagged it on his arrival. He tore open the seals on his wallet, his little teacups, his spare shirt and trousers, his sandals. His backpack smelled musty, and his watch had tarnished. The clothes he'd been wearing when they'd brought him in had wrinkled, and he disdained that condition, but suddenly he was so eager to shed his jumpsuit that such things barely mattered. He stripped immediately. Every item was like--recovering a bit of himself, his identity. It felt foreign going on, but when he stood fully dressed, he held his shoulders straight with new strength, his spine a ramrod. He left the jumpsuit in a heap on the floor. He would never touch it again, not even to shove it aside with a toe.  
  
Sandoval led him to the lift at the end of his hallway, but this time they did not go down to the basement, but up, past the lobby to the second floor. The doors slid wide on pleasant offices, on pale olive carpet and house plants, bleached wooden walls, high windows facing Lake Burley Griffin. It was like stepping into a new universe. He had to stop himself from clenching his hands to fists on his backpack.  
  
"Through here, sir," Sandoval said, and pointed through an aisle of glass to a closed conference room. "I'll bring the forms."  
  
Wufei did not thank him, though the instinct was there, revived by the civilised surroundings. He contained it tightly, proudly, and walked with his head high and his steps measured down that hall to the room. He resisted the urge to bolt it open, and quietly closed it behind him.  
  
Quatre Winner was sitting at the table.  
  
He couldn't even be surprised. It made a horrific sense, at last. They'd let him out because Quatre had paid them to. Not because they'd finally been convinced of his innocence. Of course.  
  
And then almost as swiftly he was chastened at his own instantaneous ingratitude. He might rather see anyone else sitting there but Quatre, but Quatre had made plans, had fought battles, obviously, to help him. To be there for him.  
  
He set his backpack beside a plush leather chair opposite the other man, and sank into it carefully. "Hello," he said softly.  
  
Quatre inclined his head exactly as the captain had, with no greater warmth. "Hello, Wufei."  
  
He was entirely bald, now, his head skull-like. The hand that lay on the table was all bone, pale skin stretched in fragile webs over the fingers. "You relapsed," Wufei guessed guiltily.  
  
Quatre lowered his eyes. His hand left the table to pick at the hem of his coat. "The doctors think the chemo will be enough this time." He exhaled, and then his lips pressed tightly together. "Tea? There's a pot there." He waved at a pretty oak stand by the wall.  
  
"I hope not to be here that long." Duo would have mocked his awkwardness. He wished it were Duo sitting there, because it would have been easier. They might even have laughed.  
  
Duo. "He called you," he said, sure of it suddenly.  
  
Quatre nodded. "The day you were arrested."  
  
"Where is he?" He sat forward. "Is he here? Outside?"  
  
"No. I'm sorry. I don't know where he is. He called me on L4. I never even saw him."  
  
He told himself that he had expected that. It didn't entirely ease the hurt, but he understood. He had known when Duo ran that day that it was over.  
  
Sandoval interrupted his thoughts, entering with a courteous knock. He set four clipboards before Wufei, and offered him a pen.  
  
"I've read them all," Quatre said. "Most of it is legal reassurance that your interview transcripts weren't falsified, that you weren't mistreated. Don't sign any of it."  
  
It irritated him, that unsolicited advice. He tried to read the top document, a thick packet of paper with coloured tabs lining the sides, but the language was thick with jargon, a maze of archaic English it would have taken ages to decipher. He read no more than a page before surrendering. "As he said," he muttered, and pushed them away.  
  
Sandoval's pursed lips were unhappy. "Sir, you have to sign."  
  
"He does not," Quatre interrupted. "And suggesting otherwise is unwise in front of a witness. You have a lawyer in the building. I suggest you ask for clarification before you make trouble for yourself."  
  
It was aggressively rude, all said flatly in a clipped tone Wufei had never heard from Quatre. He added nothing to it. Sandoval gathered the clipboards, and exited in a chastened hurry.  
  
They were silent in his wake. Quatre sat breathing with slight difficulty, his hands clasped in his lap. Wufei wished he had poured tea, if only to have something to gracefully occupy him.  
  
"You can leave," Quatre said finally. "I have a car outside. We can take you home. Anywhere you want."  
  
"My flat will have been let out by now," he realised. He had never even thought of such details, all this time.  
  
"No. I paid your rent." He didn't miss Wufei's narrowed eyes. "It's a figure of speech. It all came out of your pension. I've done nothing to oblige you to me."  
  
The most awkward yet. He had wounded Quatre in his thoughtlessness. "Forgive me," he said, and found he even meant it. "I don't hide my feelings well. Especially the ungenerous ones."  
  
Quatre glanced away from him. "It's fine."  
  
"I am not entitled. Quatre, please forgive me."  
  
The pale hands twitched. "Fine. Yes." He stared at the oil paintings framed on the wall, but unblinking, and Wufei knew he wasn't seeing them. "I don't know what to do with you," Quatre added abruptly. "Except help where I'm able and stay away, the rest of the time."  
  
"I don't--"  
  
"I'm here for Duo." He overrode Wufei with that flat voice. "Just as much as you."  
  
He was not one for empathy. He had never been desirous of understanding others, struggled to find sympathy within himself. But he thought he did understand, now. The way Quatre sat, as if his back ached, the strain of sitting upright against his own fragility. And assault. He could only imagine what wrestling Quatre must have done, how much attention Wufei's troubles had required at a time when he clearly had little to spare from his own ordeal. The last time they'd seen each other, Quatre had come to greet him in his first moments of freedom after finishing his sentence in prison. He had just had the diagnosis, then, but Wufei had been in such a hurry to be away from all reminders of his past that he had barely spoken. He'd been so intent on his own isolation. Quatre wasn't Duo, to insist on friendship until it was willingly given.  
  
"I'm sorry." He said it simply, though it was not simple. He swallowed dryly. "I was afraid of you. Of your pity."  
  
Quatre was not looking at him at all any more. "I'm sorry you feel that way."  
  
"And you were afraid to push me." The sunlight was beautiful, on the glass buildings, on the rippled water of the lake. On a human face, on a friend's face. "What if we stopped?" Wufei asked.  
  
"Stopped seeing each other?" Quatre shifted, then made to rise. "As you wish."  
  
"Stopped being afraid." Quatre's cancer levelled the field, and he realised that with a sudden guilty ferocity. He might live forever with his burns, but as Duo had said, they were only things he had, not things he was. Quatre had not learned that yet. Without his own Duo, would he ever?  
  
Quatre stood stiffly. "I don't want to talk about my fear with you, Wufei."  
  
"Then don't." He managed a smile. "Thank you for coming to help. I won't ask for more."  
  
"I came because Duo called."  
  
"Thank you." He floundered, and settled for saying, "Duo would thank you if he were here."  
  
"He was almost incoherent." Quatre's eyes flitted about the room, but he stayed, at least, to say it. "It's been a long time since I've heard him like that. I'm sorry for you both, that this happened."  
  
"It's over now. We-- I-- can start over."  
  
"I'll let you know if he calls me again. I'm not sure where he's disappeared to, but he always turns up."  
  
He stood as well. "If you talk to him tell him-- tell him to come home."  
  
Wufei took the piercing gaze he got as suspicion, until Quatre spoke, and he realised it was only the Quatre he had used to know, at last, appearing to defend an absent companion. "I don't know what precisely has gone on with you both," Quatre said. "I know it's not my place to ask. But I say this as his friend. He's not well. Please be careful of him. Don't hold out some kind of life together if you don't mean to give it to him."  
  
He spread his hands at his sides, opening himself for the most mistrustful of examinations. He answered only, "I love him."  
  
In the glare of the sunlight, he didn't quite know how to read what happened with Quatre's eyes. But the lines around them went, perhaps, a bit softer, a bit sadder.  
  
"He--" Wufei licked his lips. "He gave me permission to need things. Him."  
  
It was a near thing. But Quatre came back the step he'd swayed away, to the edge of the table between them. "He told you about Hilde?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"It was hell." Unadorned, like that, he believed it. "Not just what happened to her, to their home, their life. He sued the Preventers. It took two years. He won, finally, but two years, and he couldn't make them go away entirely. Couldn't bring her back to life with the money. There was no closure on it. I think he expected there would be."  
  
"There never is. It just fades into the background. Like white noise." There was a flicker of scepticism in Quatre's face, and Wufei closed his hands, planted them fist down on the table. "Do you think I'm not capable of feeling things? For him. For all of you?"  
  
Quatre blinked. "I don't think that."  
  
"Don't you?"  
  
They stared at each other. "For me," Quatre said. "I think you feel nothing for me."  
  
"That's not so."  
  
Quatre did not believe him. He blinked again, and looked away again, and for a moment Wufei thought he was going to walk out and leave it like that. Desperately, he said, "The problem is, neither of us expects to be cared for, so it's almost an affront to learn that we are. Isn't it?"  
  
How like him Quatre had become. As if they had changed places, after all these years, Quatre taking his anger, his loneliness, his hurt pride. He wished he could rip all of it away from Quatre. It was only a shield, but it did more damage than plasma fires or lymphoma.  
  
"I'm sorry," he repeated, one more time. He caught Quatre's eyes. He might have cracked that armour, finally. Some of the Quatre he remembered peeked out at him, vulnerable but alive. Wufei dragged in a slow, deep breath, and held it, to resist saying anything more. Instead, he extended his hand, the scarred hand, and held it out between them.  
  
Quatre's shoulders lost their rigidity immediately. He took Wufei's hand quickly, covering it in both his own. Wufei was unable to return the pressure, his hand unused to such exercise after months of trying to hide the extent of his disability, but he closed his fingers about Quatre's as much as the tight skin allowed.  
  
"I didn't pity your pain," Quatre murmured. "I pitied how you held yourself. Alone. I wondered what life you could have, an island in the middle of an ocean."  
  
It struck him as odd, that. He'd done it so long, since he was a child. He hadn't known it was abnormal, until Duo had showed him. He raised his other hand to touch Quatre's, and said, "Be careful that you don't start to do it, too, then."  
  
"I didn't always. And I hate it now I do." Quatre smiled, finally, a small and brittle lifting of his lips. His eyes were red-rimmed. "Be safe, whatever you do. Be happy."  
  
"Thank you. For all of it."  
  
"Do you have any needs?"  
  
He shook his head in the negative. "I have everything I need."  
  
Quatre's mouth opened, then shut. He hesitated, then said only, "I wish you well."


	7. Chapter 7

"I was making bets with myself which of you would show up first."  
  
Duo froze in the slim shadow that framed the battered stairwell. It was a good instinct, and almost quick enough. The afternoon sun didn't penetrate the windowless corridors in Wufei's complex, and steps that had creaked even under Trowa's careful feet made no noise at all for Duo's. But Trowa had been waiting, and ready for him.  
  
Trowa crossed his arms over his chest. "Hello to you too," he added. "He's not here. You might as well come out."  
  
He came easing out of the stairwell as if he might go plummeting back down it at the slightest provocation. His eyes skipped blankly over Trowa to the door, then returned, snapping, right to the Preventers patch on his jacket.  
  
"He probably didn't expect you to come back," Trowa observed.  "What are you holding?"  
  
Silence greeted his question. Duo slid down the hall toward him-- no, toward Wufei's flat, more accurately. The only sound that distinguished him from a ghost was the slight crinkle of celophane as he bent. He left a little bag propped against the door. Candied almonds. The cheerful little ribbon was a pathetic sort of effort, contrasted to the bitten nails and dirty coat that had produced it.  
  
The sudden scratchy voice made Trowa jump. There was something hypnotic about the coiled tautness of Duo's movements. Like watching a wild animal creeping warily toward the edge of civilisation.  
  
"He know you're here yet?"  
  
"Haven't seen him, no." Trowa slouched with exaggerated casualness. Duo was still staring at him. "Wherever he is, he's gone all day. I keep missing him."  
  
"Why come back now?  It's been years since he got out.  The last time."  
  
"He's been through the wringer, the past couple months.  I'm checking on him." Eyes back up to his face, unblinking behind the ragged hair that trailed from his hood. It was snowing outside. There were flakes slowly melting all over Duo's clothes, making dirty puddles where his boots had stepped. "Why'd you? Come back.  You took off the second things got ugly."  
  
"Ugly," Duo repeated softly.  "Yeah.  Hey.  I owed you something."  
  
There was one second between figuring out what the fist was doing coming toward his face and the instinct, still every bit as fast as Duo's, that ducked him backward. Knuckles grazed his cheekbone and left an impact of pain and numbness, and then Duo stumbled backward with the force of Trowa's shove.  
  
"Calm the hell down," he hissed.  "Someone will call the cops."  
  
"Worried about that, are you?"  Duo was panting, though it hadn't been that much exertion. Plenty of expression on him now-- blind fury. "Leave him alone.  He doesn't deserve to have to live through you again."  
  
"It doesn't have a damn thing to do with you." They were going to fight. Trowa could feel it, a frisson building strength like a beam canon powering up. It was crazy. But then, so was Duo, by all accounts. He hadn't believed it before.  
  
Duo's hands clenched. Released. Made fists again. "You don't get to have him.  You don't get him, he doesn't want you anymore.  You had a chance to be there when he got out of prison.  He didn't mean enough to you then to be there.  You're probably only here because-- because Quatre called you, didn't he?"  
  
"He was mine first."  It was a petty little blow. Beneath him, but Duo always had brought out the worst in him.  
  
Not that there was an always, with Duo. Duo the teenager had actually testified for him at his trial, once upon a time. Duo the adult had come with Quatre and Catherine when Trowa had been released from jail. That had been only a year after his girlfriend had been killed. He'd already been vague, back then. As mental breaks went, he'd at least done it quietly.  
  
Well, not that quietly. There was the matter of the dead woman.  
  
Trowa had been prepared to be sympathetic. Quatre had asked him to be. Wufei would probably want him to be, if they really were together now. And Trowa wholly agreed that Wufei deserved to have his desires met. It was just that meeting them meant meeting Duo, and Duo just-- met him like nails on a chalkboard, and wouldn't let up.  
  
Like right now. Staring at the badge on his chest. Trowa said, "It's not an actual betrayal, you know."  
  
"Yes," Duo said. "It really is."  
  
"So you can forgive Wufei, but not me? What about Heero? They just made him Section Commander for all the colonies. Quite the little ceremony. The brass think he's the best thing since sliced bread." He reached down for the little almond bag, tossed it in his palm. "Tea one day, drawing paper another.  Now almonds.  You hit all the right notes." He pulled the ribbon loose and shook a few of the nuts into his hand. He tilted his head back to pop them in his mouth.  
  
Duo slammed him to the wall, before he could so much as chew. Trowa strained his neck back away from the edge of a knife pressed to his carotid.  
  
No. No, once the pounding of his own blood retreated a little, he knew it by the feel. Not the sharpened side of the blade. The blunted. Duo wasn't that far gone.  
  
Just nearly. Trowa kept his hands out wide at his sides, the almonds still clutched in his left. "What's stopping you from really using that thing, Killer?" he said softly.  "You know you want to.  You kill anyone who touches what's yours."  
  
Close enough to smell coffee on Duo's breath. "Still drugging yourself to sleep at night?" Trowa taunted. He kept his voice low, confusing the signals, riding some probably unhealthy urge to see how far he could push before Duo really did lose control. "Flogging yourself along with caffeine during the daylight. You didn't think it would be that hard, did you? You didn't think you'd dream about killing her every time you closed your eyes. It's a lot different, isn't it, being a murderer, and not a soldier?"  
  
"Shut up." Duo pressed him even harder to the wall. The knife stayed exactly where it was, though, not a millimetre closer.  
  
"Where will he be when they lock you up?  Do you think he could live with it?"  
  
"Shut up, Barton."  
  
"Do you really even want him? This isn't how men fight for what they want, Duo."  
  
Duo physically muzzled him but pushing his jaws shut and holding them with a hand over his face. He could still breathe, and that was all that kept him from fighting back. It wasn't time yet.  
  
Duo was struggling. It was hard to hate a man for something he couldn't control. He didn't hate Duo, not really, and if Duo made Wufei happy then fine-- but Trowa had his own kind of honour, Preventer and spy and mercenary though he had been. He could wait it out. Give Duo time to figure himself out.  
  
Assuming they had that kind of time, before Wufei came back and saw them trying to kill each other in his building hallway.  
  
Maybe they did. Apparently Duo did still know the difference between a threat and an annoyance. He loosened his grip just enough for Trowa to slide free.  
  
So he did. He put a good five feet of space between them, and held out the almonds.  
  
"I could arrest you for assault." He waited for Duo to take the little bag, but Duo wasn't moving, wasn't even looking away from the wall. He tied the little ribbon and tossed the whole of it back toward Wufei's door. It landed almost where he'd picked it up. "I won't. But you'll meet a Preventer one day who'll be fast enough."  
  
Duo finally stirred. The knife disappeared out of his hand as if it had never been there. Slick trick. A little too much practise. He answered, "Quatre's sick."  
  
For a shot in the dark, that was excellent aim. Trowa kept his face stony out of sheer habit. "Losing time, Maxwell? That was years ago."  
  
"He relapsed."  
  
Past a certain point-- past a certain point, and it wasn't a game. Not a game, those two words. Information. Information passed between two men fighting on different sides of the war.  
  
Information. Nothing more than information.  
  
"Say whatever you have to say to Wufei," Duo said. "But don't you dare stand there and pretend you're doing this as a friend. That's the first word they tell you to forget, in Preventers."  
  
Trowa wet his lips just enough that they could part. "I'll tell him you stopped by."

+

"Duo!"  
  
It was hard to say what made him certain. The man was just another face on the street, anonymous as all men were in the snow and the gathering dusk. If there was a braid he couldn't see it; but somehow he knew with unshakable certainty.  
  
He called again, with all his considerable lungpower. More than one head turned to him, but he was blind to all but the one that mattered.  
  
The man slowed. He turned.  
  
"Duo," he said a third time. "Duo, wait. Damn it, stay."  
  
"I can't."  
  
He did not acknowledge those words. He moved as fast as he could up the street, pushing past the children loitering outside the dice bar and the old woman who blindly blocked the pavement with her kiosk of squawking chickens and ducks. He slipped in the slush on the gutter and was caught by Tony Wong, who seemed to follow him in hero-worship since the Preventers had let him go. He shook Tony off and pelted into the middle of the street toward Duo. If Duo ran from him, there was no way he could catch up, still so out of shape from so long in prison. But Duo didn't run.  
  
"You came back," he wheezed. Duo's hand slipped under his elbow, instinctive support, but he grabbed at Duo's shoulder to hold him there. "I knew you would. Come home with me, now. Please."  
  
"There's a little problem with that." But Duo was already reaching for Wufei's face, as if he couldn't stop. Just touching. Eyebrow, cheekbone. Lips.  
  
Wufei returned it all, cupping Duo's stubbled cheek. His eyes stung, with cold or with hot tears, he didn't know, but all awareness of his own weakness vanished in the shuddering of his frantic heart. "Just come home," he said thickly.  "It will all be fine again."  
  
"There's something you have to do there first.  Alone."  He leaned his forehead to Wufei's, then kissed him, right there in the middle of the street, a deep bruising kiss that was love and-- regret.  
  
"Don't go," Wufei begged him. Dignity be damned. He refused to let go of Duo's coat, made Duo peel his fingers off. "Damn it-- Duo-- don't go, please--"  
  
"I'm sorry."  Duo separated at last. "I'll come back.  I promise.  I swear.  I'll come back, even if it's just so you can tell me to go.  I swear."  
  
"Wait. Duo, please..."  
  
"I'm sorry," Duo repeated, and was gone.  
  
That had taken care of Tony, anyway. No-one would look at him, at the unseemly display he'd made. They almost never looked at him anyway, though, and he could do nothing more than note it before the shame faded into the dull ache. He stared after Duo until he disappeared around a corner.  
  
The lobby lock was broken again. Someone had put a chair against it from the inside, and the legs scraped loudly over the old linoleum when he pushed open the door. He replaced the chair. The overhead light flickered, but stayed on. He began the long trudge up the stairs to his flat.  
  
I can survive this, he told himself, one word for every stair. I. Will. Live. With. This.  
  
He had to stop, between the second and third floor. He didn't allow himself more than a few moments. It was only unbearable for a few moments. When he could swallow, when he could breathe, he kept climbing, and refused to let himself think about it again.  
  
Self-composure was a joke. When he saw Trowa Barton standing in his hallway, he was so numb he couldn't even react.  
  
Trowa was obviously waiting for him. He straightened, hands coming out of his pockets. "Hello," he said.  
  
"Hello." Oh, it was laughable. Except the tickle in his gut didn't outlast the strange kind of fatalism that came over him. Trowa was in uniform.  
  
"Can I come in?" Trowa asked.  
  
He remembered he had hands, and that one of them held his keys. He had to put his back to Trowa, to open his door. It stirred something ugly and angry in him. Rage-- rage he knew. Rage he knew how to deal with. It was even a kind of strength, and he needed that, for this.  
  
He was in complete command of himself when he stepped across his threshold. He kept his back to Trowa, deliberately, to show what contempt he held for the idea of facing another Preventer as if they were his equal. He strode to his cabinet for the water bottle, head held high. "Are you thirsty?" he said over his shoulder. "I don't have anything other than this. Your fellow officers cleared out my stores."  
  
Trowa shut the door. "Water's fine." Wufei heard his footsteps coming near, and obstinately kept his gaze on the glasses he was pouring. He did look up when Trowa put something on the counter next to him; only because it was such a surprising thing.  
  
"Almonds?"  
  
"It's not from me," Trowa said.  
  
Suspicion became a kind of saddened warmth. From Duo. He touched the little ribbon. Red silk.  
  
"Holding up?"  
  
"What else would I do?" He sipped from his glass. If he was going to be taken again, he wanted to be hydrated, at least. He thought perhaps it would be wise to take two aspirin tabs, as well. Prepare for the discomforts, this time, while he could.  
  
There was puzzlement growing in Trowa's face. Familiar, that face. But familiar only-- sideways. If he had ever really sat and just looked at Trowa head-on, he couldn't remember it. Certainly not during the war, when their interaction had been either at a time of Wufei's shame or of Trowa's lost memory. Not in prison, not from the moment he'd waked in the hospital ward to the last night in their shared cell, when they had stayed in their separate cots and stared at the ceiling in the silence of their own thoughts. There had been no good-byes.  
  
Odd, to look at him now. He was a man, well-grown. Tall and strong. He had a firm jaw, a proud straight nose. Hazel eyes more green than brown. He was a handsome man. Maybe one of the handsomest men he'd ever seen, and that included Treize Khushrenada.  
  
Not a thing like Duo, at all.  
  
"Arrest me," Wufei said finally. "It's what you came for. Just let me change my clothes before you drag me back outside."  
  
"Arrest you?" Trowa's expression cleared. He even smiled slightly in amusement. "I'm not here to take you away."  
  
He didn't quite believe it, though he didn't think Trowa would lie-- about that. "Then what are you here for?" he probed cautiously. "Information? I already told the others all I knew about Mariemaia--"  
  
"Fuck Mariemaia." Trowa opened his coat and took out a brown folder. He set it on the counter by the almonds. "I came to bring you that. Well, to bring it for Duo. He was here, by the way. Left before I... had a chance to bring it up."  
  
He put down his glass before he squeezed it hard enough to break it. "What is it?"  
  
"Proof in paperwork. It's a conclusive forensics report that clears Duo of any and all responsibility for murder."  
  
He was too surprised by that to remember his fears. "Conclusive?"  
  
"It took us three years to push it through. You know the higher-ups. They hate to let go of a bad idea." Trowa leaned forward, ignoring his instinctive flinch, and kissed his cheek. "You look good, considering. I'm glad." His finger brushed Wufei's nape, and then was gone. "I like the hair."  
  
"Trowa..."  
  
"I just came to check on you. It was time. Nothing else." Trowa stepped back. It put spiritual space between them, as well as physical. Wufei could feel him drawing away almost like the ocean flowing back after a wave. "Duo's spooked now, but ride it out.  He'll come around.  He's made up his mind that he's yours.  And you're his, whether you're ready or not."  
  
Wufei let go of his own breath, slowly, cleanly. "Where will you go now?"  
  
"Back to work." An undercurrent of some kind of strange uncertainty made Trowa hesitate. "Or maybe I'll head for the colonies. It's been a long time since I've seen..."  
  
"Seen who?"  
  
Trowa shook his head. Ah. There, then, was the Trowa he knew, the one who showed the world nothing but illusion. If there were greater truths to Trowa, they weren't for Wufei to know. Wufei had almost always been part of the world.  
  
But Trowa was no longer his to worry about.  
  
"Look," Trowa said. "My number is in there, all right? Call if you ever need a word from up the food chain."  
  
"Yes." He touched the envelope. A pardon, that's what it was; a pass. A possibility. Then, he said, "No. About the number. It's time to stand on my own."  
  
"You always did. I was just there to make sure no-one got in your way while you were doing it." Trowa kissed his cheek again. "Keep the number. Nothing says you have to use it."

+

The knock two mornings later shot him from his seat at his table to the door. He wrenched it open, careless of the noisy creaking, with Duo's name on his lips.  
  
It died to silence unspoken. The man in his corridor was Devinder Chadhur.  
  
And then as quickly as he'd been disappointed he was seized with a new worry. "What?" he demanded. "What's happened?"  
  
Chadhur raised both hands, palms out, in a peaceful gesture. "No emergencies.  Just a visit."  
  
He opened his door wider and stepped away from it, since he doubted he had much choice about it. He was starting to get used to Preventers invading his apartment. "Come in then."  
  
But Chadhur unexpectedly declined. "No, your private home should be exactly that.  Perhaps you'd take a walk with me?  I hear you like to walk."  
  
"Are you going to arrest me once we're outside?"  
  
"No."  Chadhur gave him a small smile, slightly apologetic.  "I'm here as a-- well, I suppose I can't say friend.  But my intentions are entirely friendly."  
  
No, he couldn't say friend. Wufei didn't feel much warmth for the young man, or trust, despite Chadhur's eventual recommendation that he was innocent. But it still came down to not having any choice but to hear whatever the agent had come to say. He locked his door, and followed Chadhur outside.  
  
It was only seven in the morning. Some of the stores were open, and some were just setting up; tourists who came into Chinatown didn't penetrate this far, even when it wasn't the middle of winter, so the markets were small and catered only to the needs of people who wouldn't venture out into greater Melbourne. The old woman with her chickens was there again; Wufei had never yet beat her out to the street. She had her daughter with her today, and the daughter had her daughter too, an infant wrapped in a sling around her slim chest. The girl ducked Wufei's gaze and let her dark thick hair fall over her face. For a moment, Wufei felt in perfect harmony with that sentiment.  
  
As if there hadn't been several minutes of silence on the stairs, Chadhur said, "Or I could treat you.  There's a tea house, I think, just up there."  
  
"A walk," Wufei said, "is all I agreed to."  
  
The younger man answered with a peaceable nod. The pace he struck was easy, almost ambling. The direction he chose would take them to the end of the road, if they followed it long enough; it would take them past the unadorned brownstone Temple of Buddha, or the day care. If either was Chadhur's destination, Wufei couldn't decipher why.  
  
"How are you, Mr Chang?"  
  
"As you see.  Well enough." The rest of the street was all apartments like Wufei's. The men were on their way out to work. Their families were on their way out, too, women taking their children to the elders to be watched, older boys and girls carefully groomed for school headed for the subways and the buses. It was all the normal traffic of every day since he'd first come here.  "What's this about, Agent?"  
  
"Agent no longer."  Chadhur offered another of those small smiles. "I've taken a teaching job at the Uni.  Slower pace, and all."  
  
"Congratulations, then." It was difficult even to look at the man. He'd had only two short weeks to-- adjust, as if he could be expected to do that. It felt as if he'd been picked up out of one world and dropped back into another only half-remembered. It was as well he was not required to work. He had no concentration worth anything. And now it was more precarious than even when Trowa had come to see him. He was off balance, very off his balance, and he feared he hid it badly. All he could see behind his eyes was how he'd thrown those lotus buns in fury. It replayed over and over in his head, the sound of the plate rattling on the floor, the smell of them. The sick pounding of his pulse. How sick he had felt, and how ashamed.  
  
"Thank you," Chadhur answered.  "Well, I'll come to the point, sir.  I'm here as an ambassador of sorts."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"You're being asked to serve your nation, Mr Chang." Chadhur halted, and faced him.  "The Preventers would like you to join them."  
  
It was so ridiculous that he laughed, almost too hard. "You're not serious.  You can't be."  
  
Chadhur grinned. "I told them you'd laugh."  
  
It was inconceivable. "Who sent you?"  
  
"My-- former-- superiors were impressed with how you handled yourself.  Is what I'm supposed to say, I think, or something flattering.  The truth is that they want to turn you against Mariemaia Barton.  You may not be a traitor to us, but they're happy to have you be a traitor to her."  
  
A cold prickle of dread crawled down his back.  "Are they giving me a choice? The lot of you never stop, do you?"  
  
"Them, Mr Chang."  Chadhur turned quite serious then. He gazed off up the street, and when Wufei, swimming out of his own morass of thoughts, finally followed his glance, it was to the odd-looking pair of people who loitered by the Temple. His plainclothes Preventers guard. It was Sandoval, and the woman Duo had threatened with her own gun, six months earlier. Watching them talk.  
  
Chadhur said, "Preventers have changed.  I didn't realise how much until you, sir."  
  
"If you're so disturbed by them, why are you working as their ambassador?  None of you can imagine that I'd actually trust _you_."  
  
"I find that the higher the rank, the further the mind from reality."  He turned back to Wufei.  "I volunteered for precisely that reason, not that I imagine there's much incentive that could tempt you to agree anyway.  Leave Australia.  The failure will be mine, and that's as it should be.  Find yourself a new place and stay low for a while.  This crackpot idea will pass.  Cooler heads will speak up-- I'll petition the President if I have to."  
  
"Why would you do that?  You've already resigned." That unexpected response did nothing to allay his agitation.  "I am not-- none of this is any of your concern now." He didn't want to be a fugitive--  
  
And then a darker apprehension took him. If he ran, they could and would run him down again. They'd have their reason to arrest him again. They would get what they wanted from him either way.  
  
Perhaps he wasn't justified in his bitterness. He had, once upon a time, done just what Preventers now accused him of. He had been a traitor, to the state that he had helped to make. But he hadn't believed in that state, that nation of Earthers and the finicky colonists who had ceased to be his countrymen in his heart. Peace had been a by-product of a war that had gotten so blurred and so distorted that-- yes, damn it, he had rebelled just to hear his own voice above the din. And because he had known it was his choice, he had served his sentence with the sense that it was just.  
  
But this _wasn't_. It just _wasn't_.  
  
So maybe it wasn't Chadhur's fault, maybe it was important to have someone in the world doing the job Chadhur had done on him, but, damn, he was _angry_. He was angry, a thoroughly foolish and pointless and helpless kind of angry that started right there with Chadhur and went, damn it, right on to Trowa who had joined the oppressors and Duo who would rather spend his life running than breathe the same air as a Preventer, and it came right back around to himself, because he had thought he was content with his lot, until this.  
  
He looked at that smiling friendly face on a very pleasant young man who really did have his heart in the right place after all, and he felt more totally isolated than he had the first week after prison.  
  
Chadhur said, as if, perhaps, he might understand a little after all, "I know, sir. But if you stay here, they will bring you in." Wufei heard a solid little exhale before Chadhur spoke again, somewhere in the amorphous dark to his left. "They told me, before I took your assignment, that you Gundam Pilots have a way of creating strange crises of conscience. You're not the first, and I doubt I will be the last. Ask Maxwell what to do. He's got eight years accumulated experience in staying free of Preventers hospitality. I wouldn't wait too long to ask him how he does it."  
  
He couldn't even stir himself to pretend Duo hadn't been hanging around. Chadhur knew. That pair of watch dogs up the street knew. He would have to wait, though. He would wait for Duo for as long as he could.  
  
Chadhur inclined himself in a bow. "I won't trouble you further," he said. "I wish you well and long life, Mr Chang."

+

Melbourne really was a marvellous city. The people were equally serious about ballet and football. They wore high fashion to fast-food restaurants. They held wine tastings to entice passengers stuck in the ungodly rush-hour traffic on the Calder. Not even foot traffic could make it over Westgate Bridge at four on a Friday. The International Flower Show was cancelled for weather almost every year, but they still scheduled it in the storm season, stubborn as pigs. Eastern suburb news was always the same; ‘missing dog found' or ‘fire in Camberwell put out, no injuries'. Of course, the news in the Western suburbs was always the same, too--‘woman found murdered and dumped in Footscray'. ‘Gang fight in Sunshine racially motivated.' The Super Tram stop at Flinders routinely closed for repair. Massive queues of the inconvenienced jostled for seats on the heated stairs at Flinders Station, grumbling until a joke passed through the crowds, and smiles began to replace the frowns.  
  
He'd missed Christmas, his six months in prison. Missed the rest of summer, those bright hot days they'd had together. It was dead of winter now. He had to unpack his coat.  
  
He bought Canto fried noodles from a take-away at the edge of the Chinese neighbourhood and carried it to sit in Yarra Bend Park. The next night he took prawn rice there, and then char shui the night after that. It was almost empty, especially when a week of snow came with early May. He sat ignored by the few passerby, the way he liked it, tucked onto a bench by the walking trail. Only a few boats passed on the water, now, with sparse crowds of tourists and vacationers. Homeless old men huddled on the wooden benches, hunched into their ragged coats, mumbling to themselves. At first, he searched each of their faces for Duo, who had claimed, he dimly remembered, to sleep in parks. It was never him.  
  
Preventers were there, of course. He spotted his pair, Sandoval and the girl. He did not acknowledge them. They watched him, for a while. They left, when he would not be moved. They didn't follow him there again.  
  
He waited. Duo had promised.  
  
Every day that passed, though--he half expected every slight noise in the hall to be Preventers. He did not give up--but it became more difficult, every day, to remember what he was waiting for.  
  
He packed. Everything, this time, not just what little could be stuffed hurriedly into his backpack. For a few days, he reined in his exercise, to stay closer to his apartment. He slept more lightly than ever, alert to even the smallest changes around him.  
  
If Duo was out there, he didn't come forward.  
  
He didn't know how long he would, could, wait. He felt the pressure like the ache in his burns. Every time he set a countdown, though, he let the date pass. Another day. Another after that.   
  
Another.

+

He never did ask why it took so long. The time never felt right. Then he wasn't sure he wanted, or needed, to know the details. Eventually, he forgot.  
  
One night he walked through Melbourne alone.  
  
The next, Duo fell into step with him.  
  
For a long minute, Wufei did not breathe. It was not a dream. He was not asleep. He felt the ground beneath his feet, the blast of the frozen wind, the sting of the snow.  
  
He had slowed. Duo slowed with him. Eyes on his face, wary, searching for signs.  
  
Wufei reached for the fingers dangling at Duo's hip. They were chilly, even in his own cold hand. He squeezed them tight to warm them.  
  
"Where's your hat?" he asked.  
  
Duo's lips turned up in his lined face. "I figure why a hat when you've got a lot of hair?" His free hand rose to tug at his braid. It was ragged, straw-like. Streaked with blond. He'd been somewhere with sun.  
  
"It's cold here," Wufei said.  
  
"Don't scold me.  About that."  
  
"I'm finished." He laced his fingers through Duo's. Duo's smile lingered. He felt one of his own growing, and covered his mouth. He hadn't known he remembered how to do that anymore.  
  
They reached the kerb. The light was red, but there were no cars waiting. They could have crossed safely, if Duo hadn't stopped. Wufei halted next to him.  
  
Duo said, "I missed you."  
  
It was possible to breathe, if he didn't look at Duo. There was a car, after all, speeding too quickly through the light. The driver, a woman, argued with a child in the backseat.  
  
"I'm glad you're here." He wet his lips. "Come home with me?"  
  
"I thought... Yeah. I will."  
  
"I missed hearing what you thought." Green. Duo didn't move, so he didn't move, even though Duo was facing him now, looking at him. He couldn't look back. "Some nights I'd try to imagine it."  
  
"Did you get the accent right?"  
  
"Almost." He kept his eyes on the pavement as he turned quickly. He had a crazy whirling impression of the tatty wool of Duo's coat, the dingy yarn of a scarf. He leaned too close and bashed his nose on Duo's shoulder, as Duo mistook him and leaned forward simultaneously, but then arms were around him and clutching him so hard it winded him. He crammed his eyes shut against the dizziness.  
  
"The smell of your hair..."  
  
"My hair?"  
  
"I remembered that perfectly.  It was torture."  
  
Hands pulled him up by the chin. Duo's mouth crushed to his. And even though they were in the middle of the street and probably the Preventers were just up the road watching through binoculars, everything--earthly--just fell away. He'd been waiting for so long he'd actually believed it was impossible for it to be as good as it had seemed in his imagination.  
  
It was, though.  
  
But the little physical discomforts became bigger, and he finally had to break Duo's hold, though it almost broke his will. "It's all right," he promised. He soothed the crinkle of worry in Duo's forehead. "I just like breathing."  He couldn't stop himself pressing a quick kiss to Duo's neck, but forced himself back a step, then. Duo wouldn't let him any further, his hand tight on Wufei's. It was something terrifically sweet, to touch Duo's skin again.  
  
"You remember once what I asked you? That when I thought of what I wanted, I would ask?"  
  
It was forever ago. The night he had bargained with Duo about learning to swim; the first night they'd been together as lovers. It was only four days ago. "Yes," Wufei agreed softly. "I do remember."  
  
"I have a shuttle," Duo said. "An honest-to-god shuttle. Pick a horizon. It'll be ours."  
  
He laughed. He laughed, relieved. Faint. Excited. He felt--  
  
Completed.  
  
"As far as the fuel tank will take us," he managed, past the thickness in his throat.   
  
"Further." Duo kissed him again. It was gentle at first, tender. They had much to relearn about each other. He was shocked to rediscover that he was the taller, for one. That Duo fit in his arms, when he'd become so large in his thoughts. Then what started almost chastely grew more intimate. Duo's lips pulled at his, but he was the one who teased Duo's apart and searched between them.   
  
Then it wasn't intimacy, it was passion. Heat, and Duo's rage; and some of his own, too. At the Preventers for ripping them apart when they had just realised they had something. At fate, which seemed determined to punish every adult choice he'd ever made. Mariemaia Barton, who probably was guilty of everything Preventers thought she was. At Duo, for running; at Trowa, for coming back.  
  
"Stop thinking," Duo whispered against his throat. "Just for five minutes."  
  
"Five?" He managed to detach his hands from clutching the waistband of Duo's trousers. They ached, but in a good way.  
  
"Five, tops. Been a little hard up, you know."  
  
They stood leaning on each other, warm enough where their bodies met, his heartbeat strong and quick. Duo sensed the quieting of his mood, and complied without comment. His forehead rested against Wufei's, then settled against his neck.  
  
"By the way," he added then. "Your friend Chadhur is awfully insistent."  
  
Chadhur. He almost laughed again. He did, inside, eyes closed against Duo's hair. "Yes, he is." He must be, to make Duo even speak to him. To make Duo use that word about him-- friend.  
  
"It's a good thing he's not a Preventer anymore. He's actually good."  
  
Friend.  In a bizarre way, perhaps Chadhur actually had become one, if he had made this possible, made their escape possible.  Compassion and loyalty, actual loyalty, from a wholly unexpected source. It had been easy to judge, easy to forget that there were still friends for him out there.  It had begun with Duo's sudden presence in his barren life. Seeing Quatre again reminded him as well.  Seeing Trowa, uniform and all; and knowing he probably had a hand in this, too, and if he did then perhaps even Heero, too, was not so far distant as he had thought. It-- brought balance back to the universe.  
  
"Yes," he answered. "Some of them are."

+

"Damn it," Sandoval repeated. "The Chief'll have my balls for this. Kazza, anything in the kitchen?"  
  
His partner came back to the open flat door. "Nothing. Neighbours haven't seen him since two nights back."  
  
"How the fuck did they get past us? God damn it." He knocked the hot plate to the floor. The metal made a satisfying dent in the wood flooring. "This is it," he said gloomily. "This is the end of my career."  
  
If he'd been looking up, he would have seen Kazza trying to hide her smirk. "Well," she said. "You win some, you lose some."  
  
(end)


End file.
